• Holly G Prigerson, Emily Cherlin, Joyce H Chen, Stanislav V Kasl, Rosemary Hurzeler, and Elizabeth H Bradley.
• Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519, USA. Holly.Prigerson@yale.edu
• Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2003 May 1; 11 (3): 309-19.

ObjectiveThe authors evaluated the performance of the Stressful Caregiving Adult Reactions to Experiences of Dying (SCARED) scale, a new tool to assess caregiver exposure to patient distress, and the fear and helplessness evoked by these experiences.MethodsThe SCARED was administered to 76 hospice-patient caregivers (e.g., family members). Major depressive disorder (MDD) was diagnosed with the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV; complicated grief (CG) "caseness" was diagnosed with the Inventory of Complicated Grief-Caregiver items, and quality-of-life domains were assessed with the Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form-36.ResultsRespondents endorsed frequent exposure to each SCARED experience-from 30.3% who mistakenly thought the patient had died, to 80.3% who witnessed the patient in severe pain. Adjusted analyses revealed that the odds of MDD increased by 3.08 for each standard-deviation increase in the SCARED event frequency score and that higher SCARED scores were positively associated (p <0.05) with social and role impairment, less energy, and more negative health perceptions.ConclusionThe SCARED may be a clinically useful tool for identifying caregivers at risk for MDD and quality-of-life impairments, as well as potential aspects of caregiving to target for treatment.

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