Burdened but Meaningful?: How Gender Role Attitudes Influence the Complex Links between Care-giver Self-Efficacy, Formal Support Utilisation and Benefit-Finding among Spousal Care-givers

Abstract

To foster family caregiving resilience, helping care-givers find benefits to further promoting care-giver and care-recipient well-being has emerged as an efficacious intervention in geriatric social work practice. This cross-sectional mixed-methods study investigates how gender role attitudes influence the complex associations between care-giver self-efficacy, formal support utilisation and benefit-finding among spousal care-givers. A total of 210 spousal care-giver/care-recipient dyads from four Chinese cities participated in a survey from July to August 2021. The survey used the Positive Aspects of Caregiving Scale, Caregiver Task Inventory Scale and Gender Role Attitude Scale. Mediation and moderated mediation analysis found that care-giver self-efficacy partially mediated the path of the primary stressor and benefit-finding; formal support utilisation directly moderated the mediated pathways linking primary stressor, care-giver self-efficacy and benefit-finding; and gender role attitudes moderated these intersections. Qualitative analysis revealed that spousal care-givers with high self-efficacy, who used formal support services, and who had modern gender role attitudes found the most benefits in caregiving. The findings also suggested that professionals should recognise the influence of gender role attitudes in spousal caregiving and incorporate this understanding into the development of tailored psychoeducational interventions aimed at promoting care-giver well-being.