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Perceptions of family caregivers’ psychosocial behavior when communicating with spouses who have Alzheimer's disease

School of Audiology and Speech Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

JoAnn Perry, PhD, RN

School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Julie Lewis, MSc(cand)

School of Audiology and Speech Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The literature for caregivers of persons with Alzheimer 's disease (AD) notes the importance of attending to the linguistic and psychosocial dimensions of communication. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between psychosocial aspects of caregivers’ behavior and communication outcomes for persons with AD and their spousal caregivers. In the first part of the study, we selected 40 segments of audio-recorded conversations between persons with AD and their spouses. We then asked 20 healthy seniors who were not caregivers to listen to and read the conversation segments and evaluate each segment along four psychosocial dimensions. They were also asked to independently rate how smooth the communication was in each segment. We hypothesized that when caregivers’ speech is perceived to be respectful, caring, not controlling, and/or it ascribes competence to their spouses, it would be associated with more effective communication. Our results supported these hypotheses in that communication was more likely to be rated higher in smoothness when the content and manner of caregivers’ speech were perceived to have positive psychosocial qualities. The findings have implications for training caregivers on effective psychosocial behavior when interacting with persons who have AD.

Key Words: communication • Alzheimer's disease • caregiving • psychosocial • perceptions

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