Citation

Shaffer DR, Dooley WK, Williamson GM. Psychol. Aging 2007; 22(3): 494-504.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. dshaffer@uga.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/0882-7974.22.3.494

PMID

17874950

Abstract

This research tested the proposition that the oft-reported relation between caregiver mental health outcomes (i.e., resentment, depression) and potentially harmful caregiver behavior (PHB) would be mediated or moderated by caregiver endorsement of proactively aggressive caregiving strategies (PA). Caregiver resentment was the strongest predictor of PHB in the sample of 417 informal caregivers who resided with their care recipients; in fact, resentment mediated the impact of caregiver depression, thus suggesting that depressed affect was associated with PHB only if depressed caregivers resented their caregiving burdens. As predicted, caregiver endorsement of PA moderated the relation between resentment and PHB, such that links between these two constructs were strongest when caregivers were high in both resentment and PA. Endorsement of PA also mediated the relations between demographic or contextual variables (i.e., income, care recipient dementia) and PHB. Implications of these results for research and intervention are discussed.

Language: en