[Anxiety and depression in carers of dependent patients]

To determine the prevalence of depression and anxiety in main carers of dependent patients as defined by the Dependent Care Law 39/2006.

We selected 294 main carers of dependent patients as defined by Law 39/2006, and performed a descriptive, cross-sectional and multi-centre study. They were recruited during the first semester of 2009 in 8 urban centres and 2 rural ones in the Communities of Andalusia and Murcia. We measured levels of anxiety and depression using the Hamilton scale, the social support by means of the Duke-UNK scale, sociodemographic, medical variables and associated with the support to the dependent person. The Chi-squared (chi), WiLcoxon and Student t tests were used to describe the data. Multivariate analysis was performed on the most significant data.

A total of 254 carers showed anxiety (86%) (95% CI: 82.47-90.31%) and depression 191 (65%) (95% CI: 59.51-70.41%). The presence of anxiety was statistically significant (P = .043) when associated to: being an unpaid carer, low social support, previous diagnosis of anxiety and depression, taking of psychiatric drugs, and diagnosis of depression using the Hamilton depression scale. The depression presence of depression is associated with: being an unpaid carer, family relationship, previous diagnosis of anxiety and depression, taking of psychiatric drugs, and with an anxiety diagnosis according to the Hamilton scale. No statistically significant differences were detected in the association between Levels of dependency and the appearance of depression and/or anxiety.

The prevalence of depression and anxiety in the carers of dependent patients is significantly greater than in the general population. The greater the social support the lower the prevalence of these disorders.