Toward a Better Understanding of Psychological Well‐Being in Dementia Caregivers: The Link Between Marital Communication and Depression

Abstract

Dementia research has frequently documented high rates of caregiver depression and distress in spouses providing care for a partner suffering from dementia. However, the role of marital communication in understanding caregiver distress has not been examined sufficiently. Studies with healthy couples demonstrated an association between marital communication and the partners' psychological well-being, depressiveness, respectively (e.g., Heene, Buysee, & Van Oost, 2005). The current study investigates the relationship between caregiver depression and communication in 37 couples in which the wives care for their partners with dementia. Nonsequential and sequential analyses revealed significant correlations between caregiver depression and marital communication quality. Caregivers whose husbands used more positive communication reported less depression and distress. Additionally, caregiver depression was negatively correlated with rates of positive reciprocal communication indicating dependence between the couples' interaction patterns. This study is one of the first to illustrate the relevance of spousal communication in understanding caregiver distress and depression.

Preliminary study of a communication intervention for family caregivers and spouses with dementia

“…AD is the most common form of dementia . A substantial number (40%) of family caregivers (CG) are spouses (Alzheimer's Association, 2016), and epidemiologists predict that future family CGs are more likely to be spouses due to their longer life expectancy and declining birth rates affecting the availability of adult children . Spouse CGs have reported high burden and stress and require $9.7 billion in stress‐related healthcare …”

Gender in Marriage and Life Satisfaction Under Gender Imbalance in China: The Role of Intergenerational Support and SES

“…The association between marital quality and psychological distress was broadly examined in different samples of Western societies. Happy marital relationship was found to contribute to better psychological health (Barnett et al 1994; Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton 2001; Bloch et al 2010; Braun et al 2010). Also, the marital happiness trajectory was associated with subsequent changes in both life happiness and depressive symptoms (Kamp Dush et al 2008; Waite et al 2009).…”

Managing life-altering situations: A qualitative longitudinal study of the experiences of people with memory disorders and their family caregivers

“…It is possible that FCs' negative thoughts and feelings of burden could cause them to focus on their relatives' weaknesses, creating a vicious cycle in the family, during which the FCs' negative orientation lead to negative responses and actions from the PMD, exacerbating tension. Previous research has shown that good quality of daily relationships and positive reciprocal communication can promote FCs' wellbeing [31,45,46] and support the positive adjustment of PMDs. It has also been found that enhanced relationship quality can maintain better emotional wellbeing of both the PMD and the FC, which can lead to more positive experiences of living with a memory disorder [9] .…”