Inadequate early caregiving has been associated with risks of stress-related psychological and physical illness over the life span. Dysregulated physiological stress responses may represent a mechanism linking early caregiving to health outcomes. This paper reviews evidence linking early caregiving to physiological responses that can increase vulnerability to stress-related illness. A number of...

OBJECTIVE To examine the underlying mechanisms of adults' intended caregiving responses to cry sounds in a behavioral genetic design and to investigate the role of cry pitch and perceived urgency in sensitive and harsh caregiving responses. METHODS The sample consisted of 184 adult twin pairs (18-69 years), including males and females, parents and nonparents. In an experimental design we pres...

Caregivers represent an important source of care for older adults. Many studies focused on the negative aspects of elder caregiving but few studies have analyzed also the positive effects. In addition, no studies have considered contemporarily the positive and the negative impact of caregiving to elderly people on the same people using a structural equation modeling. The purpose of this study ...

BACKGROUND The care demands of children with chronic diseases can affect caregivers' health by imposing caregiving burden to them. The health status of caregivers plays a vital role in the quality of care provided to such children and in their quality of life. OBJECTIVE To determine caregiving burden in caregivers and to identify relevant influential factors. METHODS In this cross-sectional...

One hundred ten Mexican American adolescents (12 - 17 years) who provide infant care for their older sisters were studied to determine the effects of family caregiving responsibilities on adolescents' adjustment. Controlling for prior adjustment and family context factors, providing many hours of caregiving predicted an increase in youths' school absences and disciplinary problems. Frequent con...

A common definition of caregiving does not exist. In an attempt to define the concept of caregiving, the authors used a hybrid qualitative model of concept development to analyze caregiving. The model consists of three phases: (a) theoretical, (b) fieldwork, and (c) analytical. The theoretical phase involves conducting an interdisciplinary literature search, examining existing definitions, and ...

PURPOSE To compare the diabetes self-management activities of African American primary caregiving grandmothers before and after the initiation of caregiving and to compare the diabetes self-management activities of African American primary caregiving grandmothers to diabetic women who were not caring for their grandchildren. DESIGN Using a cross-sectional, descriptive design, 68 African Ameri...

Providing care for older adults is a challenging task, particularly when close family members are involved: instead of spending quality time with the other person, caregiving relationships often focus on daily needs of the older adult, leaving little room for persons to communicate outside the caregiving context. In this paper, we examine the design of interactive technologies to support caregi...

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The study evaluated profiles (a typology) of loneliness within the caregiving unit, which was composed of an older care recipient with functional impairment, a family member, and a home care worker. DESIGN AND METHODS Overall, 223 complete caregiving units completed the 3-item Revised-University of California San Francisco Loneliness scale. Latent profile analysis was use...

BACKGROUND Heart failure is a serious health condition that requires a significant amount of informal care. However, informal caregiving costs associated with heart failure are largely unknown. METHODS We used a study sample of noninstitutionalized US respondents aged ≥50 years from the 2010 HRS (n = 19,762). Heart failure cases were defined by using self-reported information. The weekly info...