Understanding the wandering patient. A continuity of personality perspective

The purpose of this article is to study the relationship between personality and wandering behavior among individuals with dementia. Surrogates of 20 wanderers and 20 non-wanderers were administered a demographic and personality questionnaire. The findings, which also included a qualitative follow-up, revealed that wanderers scored significantly higher than non-wanders on the personality factors of extroversion (p < or = .01) and agreeableness (p < or = .05). A strong implication of the study, for nurses and other care providers, is that for many people wandering is an expression of one's personality--ingrained over a lifetime of development--rather than solely an expression of dementia.