Influences of Mutuality, Preparedness, and Balance on Caregivers of Patients With Dementia

Abstract

Greater attention, support, and consultation should be directed at caregivers with low mutuality, less preparedness, and less balance between competing needs. Specifically, family caregivers with low mutuality are at risk of higher role strain and more depressive symptoms. Those in such a category should be identified and should receive intervention as early as possible. Interventions to enhance family caregiver preparedness should be developed to increase caregiving rewards and to improve caregiver mental health.

Caregiver Burden and Satisfaction in Families of Individuals With Schizophrenia

“…Total scores were obtained by summing the mean across all items, with scores ranging from 0 = not at all to 4 = a great deal. The Mutuality Scale was translated into Mandarin Chinese by Shyu et al (2010), and its Cronbach's alpha was .94 for primary family caregiver of older people with dementia. Cronbach's alphas of .91 for family caregivers of older person (Archbold et al, 1990) have been reported.…”

“…Mutuality refers to the positive quality of a caregiver-care recipient relationship (Archbold, Stewart, Greenlick & Harvath, 1990). Mutuality is viewed as an interpersonal resource within the familial caregiving dyad that ameliorates caregiver role strain (Archbold et al, 1990;Shyu et al, 2010) and enhances satisfaction (López, López-Arrieta & Crespo, 2005) when caring for persons with mental illness and dependent elderly people.…”

Psychometric evaluation of the Caregiver Preparedness Scale in caregivers of adults with heart failure

“…In a number of quantitative studies in other chronic conditions, caregiver preparedness was linked to better caregiver outcomes. For example, in cancer caregivers, higher caregiver preparedness was found associated with higher hope, lower anxiety (Henriksson & Arestedt, ), and less mood disturbances (Schumacher, Stewart, & Archbold, ); in dementia caregivers, higher preparedness was associated with higher caregiving rewards, better mental health (Shyu et al, ), and lower role strain even when caregiving demand was high (Yang, Liu, & Shyu, ). In HF, caregiver preparedness has been examined in qualitative studies (Browne, Macdonald, May, Macleod, & Mair, ; Clark et al, ; Hupcey, Fenstermacher, Kitko, & Fogg, ; Petruzzo et al, ) but rarely in quantitative studies, perhaps due to the lack of valid instruments to measure this possibly complex construct.…”

Development of Frailty Indicators for the Community-Dwelling Older Adults

“…However, these perceptions have been poorly explored and quantified. The current focus of geriatric research is mainly on disease treatment care (Lu, Lin, Lin, & Lin, 2008), longterm care (Shyu et al, 2010), and individual health problems (Chang, Lin, Yeh, & Lin, 2010). Relatively less study has focused on the concept of frailty to explore the effects of frailty on the health of elderly people.…”