Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Julie Hicks Patrick

Committee Member

JoNell Strough

Committee Member

Shari Steinman

Committee Member

Kristina Hash

Abstract

Informal caregivers provide the bulk of care to older adults in the United States (Ali et al., 2021). Informal caregivers include family, friends, and neighbors, many of whom do not have any formal training for this role. There are costs associated with taking on a caregiving responsibility, such as scheduling appointments, helping with medications, household tasks, and even financial support (Rha et al., 2015). Many of these informal caregivers lack the coping skills necessary to manage the challenges associated with caregiving (Xu et al., 2021). Many also take on this role despite the personal costs on one’s own health, time, and resources. These challenges have been shown to contribute to negative health outcomes, decreased quality of life, and an increased risk for substance use (Lui et al., 2022). The current study examined a model of caregiver physical health in a large national sample of caregivers. This model of caregiver physical health builds on the two-factor framework originally proposed by Lawton et al. (1991) and later built on by Pruchno et al. (1996). This model examines medical access resources, caregiving demands, and positive and negative health behaviors as predictors of caregiver physical health in a structural equation model. It was found that high medical access resources were a significant predictor of positive health behaviors (b = -.92, p < .001). Negative health behaviors significantly predicted caregiver physical health (b = .13, p < .01). Additionally, caregiver demands (b = .09, p < .001) predicted lower levels of caregiver physical health. The results from this study have implications for future models predicting physical health in caregivers and for the development of future interventions.

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