title: Understanding the wandering patient. A continuity of personality perspective.
abstract: The purpose of this article is to study the relationship between personality and wandering behavior among individuals with dementia. Surrogates of 20 wanderers and 20 non-wanderers were administered a demographic and personality questionnaire. The findings, which also included a qualitative follow-up, revealed that wanderers scored significantly higher than non-wanders on the personality factors of extroversion (p < or = .01) and agreeableness (p < or = .05). A strong implication of the study, for nurses and other care providers, is that for many people wandering is an expression of one's personality--ingrained over a lifetime of development--rather than solely an expression of dementia.
authors.affiliation: University of South Alabama, HPELS Department, Mobile 36688, USA.
authors.forename: D W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Thomas
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003704:Dementia / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010551:Personality; D012919:Social Behavior; D016138:Walking / Q000523:psychology*