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Objectives:To identify caregiver profiles of persons with mild to moderate dementia and to investigate differences between identified caregiver profiles, using baseline data of the international prospective cohort study Actifcare. Methods:A latent class analysis was used to discover different caregiver profiles based on disease related characteristics of 453 persons with dementia and their 453 informal caregivers. These profiles were compared with regard to quality of life (CarerQoL score), depressive symptoms (HADS-D score) and perseverance time. Results:A 5-class model was identified, with the best Bayesian Information Criterion value, significant likelihood ratio test (p< 0.001), high entropy score (0.88) and substantive interpretability. The classes could be differentiated on two axes: (i) caregivers' age, relationship with persons with dementia, severity of dementia, and (ii) tendency towards stress and difficulty adapting to stress. Classes showed significant differences with all dependent variables, and were labelled ‘older low strain’, ‘older intermediate strain’, ‘older high strain’, ‘younger low strain’ and ‘younger high strain’. Conclusion:Differences exist between types of caregivers that explain variability in quality of life, depressive symptoms and perseverance time. Our findings may give direction for tailored interventions for caregivers of persons with dementia, which may improve social health and reduce health care costs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background. Dealing with work related stress is a declared priority of European Union mental health policy. A particularly under-researched sector in this regard is the community vocational support sector for people with mental health and intellectual disability problems. Aims. To report on the organisational profile of the vocational support and rehabilitation sector forpeople with mental health and intellectual disabilities as this relates to occupational stress, in five European countries (Austria, Ireland, Italy, Romania and UK). Methods. A sector profile questionnaire was distributed to representative organisations in five countries and a short face-to-face survey was conducted with 25 local managers (five from each country) to draw up a profile and facilitate a comparative description and analysis. Results. It was found that there is no national and European data collected at any level in this sector upon which to base effective policy interventions to combat occupational stress specific to professionals working in this sector. Results indicate that the sector in a number of the countries sampled does not have effective mechanisms in place to deal with occupational stress. Conclusion. Developing effective transnational occupational stress management policy that supports staff working in this sector and measuring its success is greatly impaired by a failure to effectively define the purpose of the sector and collect and collate national data to support it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]