The general public's concern about developing dementia and related factors in Japan

Diseases associated with older age, such as dementia, have become a concern not only to older people but also to the majority of the general public as a result of a rapidly graying population (Arai et al., 2005). Despite this, most previous studies on individuals’ concern about developing dementia have targeted specific populations such as family caregivers (e.g., Alberts et al., 2011), first-degree relatives of the patients (e.g., Roberts and Connell, 2000), and the participants of a longitudinal epidemiological study on cognitive decline who were aged 55 years or older (Yeo et al., 2007). Hence, little is known about the extent of personal concern about developing dementia among the general public. Therefore, the present study aimed to: (i) elucidate the extent of the general public’s concern about developing dementia; and (ii) identify factors statistically related to such concern. The data were obtained from our survey targeting 2500 Japanese general public 20 years or older; the details of the survey are described elsewhere (Arai et al., 2008). The participants of the survey were asked to rate their responses to the following question: “Are you concerned about developing dementia in the future? ” (“Yes”=1, and “No”=0). As a result, 62.1% (1335 subjects) reported that they were concerned about developing dementia in the future. Surprisingly, this proportion among the Japanese general public wasmuch higher than those obtained from previous studies targeting the earlier described specific populations, which were in the range 16–52% (Roberts and Connell, 2000; Yeo et al., 2007). The fact that Japan is one of the world’s fastest-aging societies might have contributed to this high proportion of dementia anxiety, that is, concern about developing dementia among the general public in Japan. Subsequently, a logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine which of the following five independent variables were significantly related to participants’ concern about developing dementia: participants’ age, sex, the extent of their knowledge about dementia (Arai et al., 2008), knowing someone with dementia in person, and the participants’ satisfaction with the long-term care (LTC) insurance. The correlation coefficients for all these independent variables were less than 0.19. First, it was revealed that older participants were more likely to be concerned about developing dementia, and that female participants were more likely to be concerned about developing dementia than male participants (Table 1). On the other hand, in previous studies targeting specific populations rather than the general public, the associations between one’s dementia anxiety and socio-demographic factors such as age and sex were found to be somewhat inconsistent. Second, those who knew someone with dementia in personweremore likely to be concerned about developing dementia (Table 1). To our knowledge, our study is the first study to show that “knowing someone with dementia in person” is related to dementia anxiety among the general public. Third, those who had a low level of satisfaction with the LTC insurance system were more likely to be concerned about developing dementia than those who were satisfied with this system (Table 1). It may be the case that those who had a low level of satisfaction with the LTC insurance system may have been apprehensive about the care services they would receive should they develop dementia. Such apprehension may have resulted in dementia anxiety. To our knowledge, this is the first study to date to examine concern about developing dementia among the general public. Apparently, the general public’s concern about developing dementia is related to sociodemographic factors such as age and sex. In the present study, participants’ satisfaction with LTC insurance was the only statistically significant factor that is potentially modifiable. In other words, to alleviate the high level of dementia anxiety among the general public shown in this study, raising the level of satisfaction with LTC insurance among the general public may be effective. Improvements in the LTC insurance system are desirable so that the general public can be reassured that a safety net would be available should they develop dementia.