Disrupted Activities and Caregivers' Resilience and Positive Affect
Jeong Eun Lee, Yulri Kim, Eunbea Kim, Joseph SvecAbstract
Background and Objectives
Caregiving for older adults imposes substantial physical and emotional costs, yet less attention has been paid to how disruptions in personally valued activities and caregiver–care recipient relationship quality relate to caregivers’ psychological well-being over time. Drawing on the activity restriction model and conservation of resource theory, this longitudinal study examined how within-person changes in disrupted valued activities (DVA) and negative relationship quality (NRQ) influence caregivers’ resilience and positive affect.
Research Design and Methods
Data came from three waves of the National Study of Caregiving, linked to the National Health and Aging Trends Study. The analytic sample included 2,415 caregivers who provided 3,441 caregiver-wave observations, nested within 1,559 care recipients. Three-level linear mixed models decomposed DVA and NRQ into between-person and within-person components and adjusted for caregiver characteristics, care-recipient dementia status, and activities of daily living (ADL) limitations.
Results
Resilience and positive affect showed substantial variation between-person and within-person. Higher average and higher-than-usual DVA were each associated with lower positive affect and resilience. Higher average NRQ was associated with lower positive affect and resilience, whereas higher-than-usual NRQ was associated with lower positive affect but not resilience. Care-recipient dementia status and ADL limitations were not associated with either outcome once caregiver characteristics were considered.
Discussion and Implications
DVA and NRQ appear to be distinct sources of resource loss, independently linked to lower caregiver well-being across and within caregivers over time. Interventions may be effective by targeting either the maintenance of meaningful activities or improvements in relationship quality.