Caregiving self-efficacy and pain assessment by family caregivers of people living with dementia

Like other older adults, people living with dementia (PLWD) experience pain, and the task of pain assessment often falls to family caregivers. In this study, we surveyed family caregivers of PLWD to determine the fre-quency with which they use different elements of pain assessment. We also determined correlations of fam-ily caregivers' characteristics (caregiving self-efficacy, relationship duration and type, mood, education level, and health literacy) with their use of the elements of pain assessment. Participants reported frequent use of many pain assessment elements. Statistically significant correlations were found between caregiving self-efficacy for obtaining respite and asking others about noticed behavior change (rho=.0.41, p=.007); and for responding to disruptive patient behaviors for multiple pain assessment elements including observing pain behaviors (rho=0.49, p<.001), asking others about noticed behavior change (rho=0.54, p<.001) and recheck-ing (rho=0.56, p<.001). Continued efforts are needed to describe pain assessments by family caregivers of PLWD. & COPY; 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.