Thirty-two care-givers of persons with Alzheimer's disease and 30 care-givers of persons with recurrent metastatic cancer were interviewed three times over a 2-year period. Both groups showed a decline in anxiety and negative mood while dementia care-givers also experienced a decline in anger. A multiple regression analysis revealed that care-giver neuroticism, self-reported low strength of religious beliefs and anger explained 54% of the variance of the negative affect balance score at 2-year follow-up while higher number of social contacts at index interview and strong self-reported religious faith explained 43% of the variance of positive affect balance.