Carolina Sapriza
Research Mentor: Kira Birditt
Mentor Department: Institute for Social Research, Other
Author(s): Carolina Sapriza, Kira Birditt
Session: Session 5 (2:00 PM – 2:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 136
Abstract
At least 8.4 million people in the U.S. provide care to an adult with mental or emotional health issues. There are unique challenges in caregiving for individuals with psychiatric disabilities. including the stigma against psychiatric disabilities and mental illness as well as the physical, financial, and emotional labor required. These demands without a doubt affect families and others close to the care recipient. This study examines how the presence of psychiatric disabilities (including cognitive disabilities such as dementia) in people receiving care more strongly impacts the emotional and physical well-being and stress-coping of the caretaker compared to physical conditions (heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc.). Data sets from the Understanding America Study (UAS) and UAS-Caregiving Lifecourse Experiences Assessed in Real-time (UAS-CLEAR) will be analyzed to assess daily emotional and physiological well-being among care recipients with and without disabilities through ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and wearable Fitbit devices. A baseline survey will collect information on caregiver wellbeing, health measures, and coping with stress. A Pearson correlation will be conducted between caregiver burden, caregiver stress, care recipient psychiatric conditions, and care recipient physical conditions. The well-being of caregivers attending to care recipients with psychiatric disabilities was found to be lower than that of caregivers tending to individuals with purely physical conditions. The ability to effectively cope with stress was also found to be lower for caregivers tending to individuals with psychiatric disorders than those with purely physical conditions. These findings will contribute in understanding certain caregivers’ daily emotional and physical experience in response to the type of condition of the care-recipients in order to give particular caregiver and care recipient pairs catered support to increase caregiver well-being, and will provide insight on the impact of psychiatric conditions compared to physical conditions that could potentially improve caregiver health and wellbeing.
