Wolf Douglas A, Raissian Kerri M, Grundy Emily
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY USA.
University of Connecticut, West Hartford, CT USA.
Eur J Ageing. 2015 Mar 11;12(3):175-185. doi: 10.1007/s10433-015-0339-y. eCollection 2015 Sep.
Decades of research supports a widely held view that providing parent care is stressful, and that these stresses are associated with adverse mental health outcomes. However, some recent studies suggest an additional possibility, namely that "noncaregiver stress"-a consequence of having a parent with major care needs, but not being an active caregiver-may be a serious problem as well. This finding emerges in data which permit separate controls for parental for care and offspring of parent care. We extend these results using Generations and Gender Programme data from five countries-Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Romania, and Russia-for which the necessary variables can be comparably measured. Our outcome variable is a depression score based on a 7-item scale. In country-specific regressions, we find two instances of statistically significant associations of depression with the regular provision of personal care to a parent with care needs, i.e., the usual "caregiver stress" result. However, we also find two instances of statistically significant differences in respondents' depressive symptoms that are associated with having a parent with care needs, i.e., instances of "noncaregiver stress." We find limited evidence of gender-specific responses to both forms of stress. Our evidence supports both the typical caregiver stress response and the less-studied noncaregiver stress response, which suggests the need for additional research.
数十年的研究支持了一种广泛持有的观点，即提供父母照料会带来压力，并且这些压力与不良的心理健康结果相关。然而，最近的一些研究提出了另一种可能性，即“非照料者压力”——有主要照料需求的父母所带来的后果，但自己并非积极的照料者——可能也是一个严重的问题。这一发现出现在能够分别对照料父母和照料父母的子女进行控制的数据中。我们利用来自保加利亚、法国、格鲁吉亚、罗马尼亚和俄罗斯这五个国家的世代与性别项目数据扩展了这些结果，对于这些国家，可以对必要变量进行可比测量。我们的结果变量是基于一个7项量表得出的抑郁得分。在特定国家的回归分析中，我们发现抑郁与定期为有照料需求的父母提供个人照料之间存在两个具有统计学意义的关联实例，即通常的“照料者压力”结果。然而，我们还发现了两个受访者抑郁症状存在统计学显著差异的实例，这些差异与有照料需求的父母相关，即“非照料者压力”的实例。我们发现对于这两种压力形式，性别特异性反应的证据有限。我们的证据既支持典型的照料者压力反应，也支持较少被研究的非照料者压力反应，这表明需要进行更多研究。
