Background: Dementia caregiving has been linked to negative consequences for mental health in caregivers. Although depression seems to be an enduring psychological consequence associated with caregiving, little is known about the longitudinal effects that modulating variables related to coping strategies have on caregiver's changes in depression over time. This study is aimed at investigating whether, in a one-year longitudinal study with 130 dementia caregivers, caregivers’ depression scores co-vary with modulating variables such as self-efficacy for controlling upsetting thoughts, frequency of leisure activities, and cognitive reappraisal, after controlling for gender and caregivers’ stressors (frequency of disruptive behaviors).

Methods: Linear mixed models analysis was used to analyze the associations between time-varying values for caregivers’ stressors and modulating variables in predicting caregivers’ depression.

Results: It was found that increases in caregivers’ self-efficacy, frequency of leisure activities, and cognitive reappraisal significantly predicted decreases in caregivers’ depression over time, even after controlling for gender and frequency of disruptive behaviors. In addition, increases in stressors were significantly related to increases in depression over time.

Conclusions: The inclusion of modulating variables significantly contributed to the explanation of the variance in caregivers’ depression, adding explanatory power to the variables usually included in the stress and coping model (gender and stressors).