Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 51, Issue 3 P130-P142, Copyright © 1996 by The Gerontological Society of America

ARTICLES

Amount of care given and caregiving satisfaction: a latent growth curve analysis

AJ Walker, AC Acock, SR Bowman and F Li
Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, Oregon State University, USA. walkera@ccmail.orst.edu

We examined the wear-and-tear hypothesis using data from 4 annual interviews with 130 (128 White) middle-aged daughters caring for their physically impaired, elderly mothers. We formulated a latent growth curve model hypothesizing that increases in the amount of care given by daughters caused a decrease in caregiving satisfaction, independent of caregiving duration. We found considerable individual variability and change in both caregiving satisfaction and the amount of care given in univariate latent growth curve analyses. Contrary to the wear-and-tear hypothesis, a multivariate latent growth curve analysis revealed duration of caregiving had no effect on either initial caregiving satisfaction or change in satisfaction. An elaborated wear-and-tear model was supported, however. The mechanism for decline in satisfaction is an increase in the amount of care given.

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