Dementia mindsets of caregivers
As the need for caregivers of persons with dementia grows, the persisting shortage of qualified professional caregivers, and the significant demands placed on them, make it essential to understand unique individual differences among caregivers. By gaining insight into these differences, we can better support caregivers so they can provide adequate care and assistance for persons with dementia, and we may gain a new angle for future intervention.This dissertation introduces “dementia mindsets” - how caregivers think about the malleability of dementia - as a new construct for understanding individual differences among caregivers. Three empirical chapters investigate dementia mindsets of caregivers and their relationships with self-reported well-being and quality of care. Results suggest that the new Dementia Mindset Scale is a valid and reliable measure of dementia mindsets of professional caregivers. Further, a malleable dementia mindset negatively predicted disengagement as a facet of burnout, lower levels of negative emotional well-being in care situations, and a greater sense of competence. In contrast, a fixed dementia mindset was linked to higher levels of negative emotional well-being and lower levels of positive emotional well-being. Further, positive emotional responses to care situations seem to function as a facilitator, whereas a fixed dementia mindset seems to function as a barrier, to person-centered care. Differences between professional and informal caregivers were also identified. The discussion focusses on the theoretical and practical contributions of these findings as well as the strengths, limitations, and future research directions.