Objectives: 1) To describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of residents with dementia and depressive symptoms in the Australian private residential aged care (RAC) context; and 2) to investigate the association between neuropsychiatric symptoms, depression and quality of life and their interactions with dementia severity.

Methods: This study examined the baseline demographic and clinical data from the Australian arm of the Music Interventions for Dementia and Depression in ELderly care (MIDDEL) study, a multinational, cluster-randomised controlled trial. Demographic characteristics, neuropsychiatric symptoms, depression, quality of life and dementia severity were collected in 330 residents of 12 private RAC facilities across Melbourne, Australia. Descriptive statistics, the Kruskal-Wallis test and the Pearson Χ(2) test were used to describe and compare the demographic and clinical characteristics according to dementia severity. The association between clinical characteristics and dementia severity was examined using linear regression analyses.

Results: Residents' mean age was 86.5 years, 69% were female, and 44.2% had severe dementia. There were no significant differences between the dementia severity groups on age, sex and education. Residents with severe dementia were more likely to have a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (40.3%) and be born overseas (46.8%). Higher levels of neuropsychiatric symptoms, distress and depressive symptoms, and lower quality of life were associated with more severe dementia.

Conclusions: The findings from our study highlight the diverse and complex care needs of people living with dementia in the Australian private RAC setting, which can be used to inform targeted, person-centred dementia care planning, staff training and allocation of resources.