Lídia Maria Ramos Serra*, Daniela Filipa Palma Serpa and Luís Miguel Domingues Ferreira Silva

Department of Psychology, Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Portugal

*Corresponding Author: Lídia Maria Ramos Serra, Department of Psychology, Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, Portugal.

Received: August 17, 2023; Published: September 28, 2023

Abstract

Objective: The main objective of this study was to examine whether social anxiety and social phobia can predict the difficulties faced by family caregivers in providing care to elderly people with dementia. The study also investigated whether these predictive effects remain consistent when larger samples are obtained through data simulation.

Methods The study involved a sample of 100 family caregivers, primarily women, who had been providing care to people with dementia for an average of 5 years. The instruments used in the study were a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Carers Assessment of Difficulties Index, Social Phobia Scale and Anxiety Scale in Social Interaction Situations.

Results: The findings of the study indicated that both social phobia and social anxiety significantly predicted the difficulties experienced by caregivers in providing care to individuals with dementia. These predictive effects were observed in both the original sample and the simulated samples obtained through data simulation.

Conclusion: The presence of anxiety disorders, specifically social phobia, and social anxiety, can serve as important predictors of the challenges faced by family caregivers in providing care to elderly people with dementia. The researchers suggested that specialized interventions targeting these anxiety disorders could help prevent a deterioration in the quality of care provided to dependent people with dementia.

 Keywords: Dementia; Caregivers; Social Anxiety; Social Phobia; Difficulties in Caregiving

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Citation

Citation: Lídia Maria Ramos Serra., et al. “The Impact of Social Anxiety and Social Phobia on Difficulties in Providing Care for Family Caregivers to People with Dementia”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 7.10 (2023): 38-44.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2023 Lídia Maria Ramos Serra., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.