Desire to institutionalize in Alzheimer's caregivers: An empirical analysis on Italian data.

OBJECTIVE: Families choice to institutionalize an Alzheimer's disease (AD)-affected relative is hard and possibly painful. Recent literature contributions have investigated the causes of the emergence of desire to institutionalize (DI) who is affected by AD. This paper contributes to the topic by providing an Italy-based empirical analysis of factors correlated with DI in primary informal caregivers of patients affected by AD. METHODS: Data were drawn from an original survey carried out over 2009. 171 primary informal caregivers of patients followed in two Italian outpatients AD Care Units, located in two of the major Italian cities, Naples (46.78%) and Rome (53.22%), were interviewed. The caregiver desire to institutionalize AD affected patients was observed and its heterogeneity was studied through logistic regression. RESULTS: DI was positively correlated with patient poor autonomy, to the housewife/househusband status of primary caregiver and to the presence of a formal caregiving. DI was also barely correlated with patient gender and with the hours of informal supervision (p < 0.10). The housewife status of the primary caregiver was also positively associated with DI, while the female gender of the patient was negatively associated to it. DISCUSSION: The institutionalization of an AD-affected relative is a painful decision which is discouraged by the scarcity of adapted facilities and the need of an economical contribution in case of institutionalization in private facilities not receiving public support.