Consistencies in Spouse Support Across Medical and In-home Contexts

Presented by: Justin Briggs, Amber Seidel, Ashley Kite, Amber Belcik, Kaitlyn Plewniak, Lesley Yegerlehner, Cleveland Shields, Melissa Franks

Chronic illness management for married patients often includes involvement of their spouses both in the medical setting and at home. We described spouses' role in medical encounter dialogue in the context of diabetes management, determining the association between spouse support statements during medical encounters with patient reports of spouse diet-related support at home. Findings support our hypotheses that statements of spousal support during medical encounter dialogue would be positively associated with patient reports of spouse diet-related support at home.

Within-Family Patterns of Support Given to and Received From Multiple Adult Children

Presented by: Kyungmin Kim, Karen L. Fingerman, Steven H. Zarit, Kira S. Birditt

This study investigates within-family patterns of support given to and received from multiple adult children. Utilizing data from 431 middle-aged parents with at least two offspring, we applied a latent profile analysis to within-family summary scores (family-mean and family-sd) of support exchanges. Three patterns of exchanges with multiple adult offspring were identified: (1) high mean levels of exchanges and low variability among offspring (45.4%), (2) low mean levels of exchanges but high variability among offspring (20.5%), and (3) low mean levels of exchanges and low variability among offspring (34.1%). Factors associated with the latent patterns were also examined.

Transition to Spouse Care, Physical Health, and Marital Quality

Presented by: Heejeong Choi, David R. Johnson

We examined if transitioning into spousal caregiving or care receiving might influence marital quality for both caregivers and care receivers, and whether the association might be moderated by changes in their functional health. The data came from married couples who participated in the last 4 waves of the Health and Retirement Study. Results indicated that, compared to married individuals who were neither caregivers nor care receivers, new spouse care receivers experienced greater increases in positive marital quality when their partner caregivers' health deteriorated. New spouse caregivers reported greater increases in negative marital quality when their partner care receivers' health declined.

Family Caregivers of Persons With Dementia: Evaluating Two Key Measures

Presented by: Mark Jackson, Elizabeth Fauth

The NPI and RMBPC, which measure symptoms of dementia and corresponding caregiver stress appraisals, both predict burden and depression in family-caregivers. However, few comparative resources are available to help determine which measure is most appropriately suited for certain applications, such as evaluation of caregiver interventions. Data for this research come from 164 caregivers who completed the RMBPC and NPI. Multivariate path models produced using MPlus compare the extent to which these measures predict caregiver burden and depressive symptoms. Results indicate that RMBPC scores significantly predict caregiver depression, even when controlling for NPI scores and the mediator of caregiver burden.