| Summary: | The purpose of this study was to test Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) theoretical
framework of stress and coping as it applied to daughters who have parents living in
care facilities. Specifically, the effects of personal and environmental influences,
cognitive appraisals, and coping on positive affect and depression were examined in
two subsamples of daughters: daughters with parents with dementia (n=100) and
daughters with parents with other health difficulties (n=89).
The data were collected from a volunteer sample of 189 daughters (M age 51.3)
in the Greater Vancouver region. Daughters completed three parts of a questionnaire
over a six-week period. Specific variables of interest included prior communal
behaviors, support satisfaction, care satisfaction, appraisals (perceived control and
perceived stress), coping strategies (relationship-focused, problem-focused, emotionfocused),
positive affect, and depression. Negative affectivity (NA) was examined as a
confounding variable.
Path analysis using LISREL VIII (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993) was undertaken to
examine the hypothesized relationships between antecedent, mediating, and outcome
variables that are central to Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) theoretical framework.
Initial results revealed a poor fitting model for both the dementia and other health
groups. However, a revised model, taking into account theoretical and empirical
support for a direct relationship between support satisfaction and emotion-focused
coping, provided an acceptable fit for both groups.
The overall pattern of relationships for the variables in the model offer some
support for the hypothesized model and for Lazarus and Folkman's theoretical
assumptions. For both groups, greater control over the stressful aspect of facility care
was related to more problem-focused coping, which in turn was related to more
positive affect. For the other health group, greater appraised stress was related to more
emotion-focused coping, which was in turn was related to greater depression. Among
daughters with parents with dementia, low levels of care satisfaction and high
communal behaviors were associated with greater perceived control. The hypothesized
mediational role of appraisals and coping was not supported. The results point to the
importance of understanding caregiving in the context of chronic stress and the unique
contribution of personality, health type, and positive aspects of caregiving to a
daughter's stress process.
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