The Receipt of Care and Depressive Symptoms in Later Life.

Caregiving;Depressive Symptoms in Later Life;Social Work;Social Sciences;Social Work and Sociology

Kwak, MinyoungAnspach, Renee ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Caregiving;    Depressive Symptoms in Later Life;    Social Work;    Social Sciences;    Social Work and Sociology;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/97967/mykwak_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Apace with the rapid increase in the aging population and steep reductions in federalfunding for long-term care in the U.S., caregiving is emerging as an important issuefor many families. Although caregiving relationships include both a caregiver and acare-recipient, existing research has focused heavily on caregivers and the experiences ofcare-receiving older adults have been less-well documented. This three-essay dissertationexplores how the receipt of care influences depressive symptoms among older adults byanalyzing nationally representative data from the Health and Retirement Study.Based on identity theory, the first essay examines the extent to which self-perceptionsof aging explain the relationships among the receipt of care, perceived loss of control,and depressive symptoms among older adults. Structural equation modeling was used.Results indicated that self-perceptions of aging mediated the relationship between receiptof care and perceived loss of control as well as the relationship between receipt of care anddepressive symptoms. That is, older adults who received a greater amount of care weremore likely to perceive their aging negatively which, in turn, increased perceived loss ofcontrol and depressive symptoms.The second essay investigated whether older adults who receive care from their spouseare more vulnerable to the negative impact of their spouse’s physical and mental healththan older adults who do not receive care by using a linear mixed model. Results indicatedthat the receipt of care moderates only the impact of wives’ mental health on husbands’depressive symptoms. Husbands who receive care from their wives are more sensitive totheir wives’ depressive symptoms than husbands who do not receive care.Finally, the third essay assessed to what extent the effects of positive and negative supxiport from spouses are stronger for caregiving couples than for non-caregiving couples.Structural equation modeling demonstrated that positive support from spouses is more importantfor wives who provide or receive care than for those in non-caregiving relationships.No differences in the effects of negative support from spouses were observed between caregivingand non-caregiving couples.