The Stressful Caregiving Adult Reactions to Experiences of Dying (SCARED) Scale: a measure for assessing caregiver exposure to distress in terminal care. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • OBJECTIVE: The authors evaluated the performance of the Stressful Caregiving Adult Reactions to Experiences of Dying (SCARED) scale, a new tool to assess caregiver exposure to patient distress, and the fear and helplessness evoked by these experiences. METHODS: The SCARED was administered to 76 hospice-patient caregivers (e.g., family members). Major depressive disorder (MDD) was diagnosed with the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV; complicated grief (CG) "caseness" was diagnosed with the Inventory of Complicated Grief-Caregiver items, and quality-of-life domains were assessed with the Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form-36. RESULTS: Respondents endorsed frequent exposure to each SCARED experience-from 30.3% who mistakenly thought the patient had died, to 80.3% who witnessed the patient in severe pain. Adjusted analyses revealed that the odds of MDD increased by 3.08 for each standard-deviation increase in the SCARED event frequency score and that higher SCARED scores were positively associated (p <0.05) with social and role impairment, less energy, and more negative health perceptions. CONCLUSION: The SCARED may be a clinically useful tool for identifying caregivers at risk for MDD and quality-of-life impairments, as well as potential aspects of caregiving to target for treatment.

publication date

  • January 1, 2003

Research

keywords

  • Attitude to Death
  • Caregivers
  • Stress, Psychological
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Terminal Care

Identity

PubMed ID

  • 12724110

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 11

issue

  • 3