==== Front
Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1545
igaa057.1545
Abstracts
Session 2993 (Paper)
Family Caregiving for Adults With Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Related Dementias
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Suicidal Ideation in Dementia Family Caregivers
Puga Frank 1 Wang Danny 2 Pickering Carolyn 2 1 
The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
2 
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”477 477
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Family caregivers of individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias (ADRDs) are exposed to unique stressors that put them at risk for depression and suicidal ideation. To date, little is known about contextual factors surrounding suicidal ideation among ADRD family caregivers. We investigated individual caregiver characteristics (gender, age, relationship to care-recipient, history of depression and anxiety) and daily environmental stressors (behavioral symptoms of dementias; BSDs) associated with daily suicidal ideation using a micro-longitudinal design and ecological momentary assessment methods. Data were collected from a national sample of family caregivers (N=51) who completed daily diaries over 21 days (n=911). Suicidal ideation was endorsed on forty-seven days (5.16%) during the sampling period, with 11 participants (22%) endorsing suicidal ideation at least once. Suicidal ideation did not differ based on the caregiver’s age and relationship to the care-recipient (spouse or child). Participants with a history of mild depression and anxiety endorsed more days with suicidal ideation. Finally, family caregivers were more likely to endorse suicidal ideation on a day when more than one type of BSD was reported (OR = 1.25, 95% CI: 1.04-1.50, p = 0.018) and when BSDs were perceived as more bothersome than average (OR = 1.12, 95% CI: 1.05-1.19, p < 0.001). In this investigation, we identified descriptive and predictive factors that will inform the development of targeted interventions for ADRD caregivers at high risk of suicidal ideation.