Social support, care and cognition in a study addressing elderly caregivers

Abstract

The contingent of elderly caregivers caring for elderly individuals increased in number and importance and is currently an important public health problem. The literature has shown that social support positively affects caregivers, especially in reducing stress and overload. There are, however, few studies addressing the relationship between social support and the cognition of caregivers. Considering the importance of cognition to one's performance when providing care, this study's objective is to analyze the relationship between social support and the cognition of elderly caregivers providing care to elderly individuals and then compare this to the cognition of elderly non-caregivers registered in the primary health care services of a city in São Paulo, Brazil, including rural areas. This descriptive, comparative study uses a quantitative approach. All ethical guidelines will be complied with. Elderly caregivers providing care to elderly individuals (n=41) and elderly non-caregivers (n=41) will be matched by gender, age and education. The following instruments will be used in data collection: Questionnaire to characterize sociodemographic data, health, and care delivery; the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination Revised (ACE-R), and the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS). To assess cognitive processing (P300), a device that captures evoked response (EEG) will be used with an auditory task in the oddball paradigm. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), version 21.0 will be used in data analysis. Descriptive and comparison analysis will be performed, with level of significance established at p<0.05. (AU)