Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 53, Issue 3 P155-P164, Copyright © 1998 by The Gerontological Society of America

ARTICLES

The role of neuroticism and mastery in spouse caregivers' assessment of and response to a contextual stressor

J Bookwala and R Schulz
Department of Psychiatry (Geriatric Psychiatry Section), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. [email protected]

Data from more than 300 spousal caregivers and their care recipients were analyzed to demonstrate the effects of caregivers' personality attributes--neuroticism and mastery--on their assessment of a contextual stressor (the care recipient's behavioral and functional impairment) and on their experience of distress associated with that stressor. Caregivers who were high in neuroticism and/or low in mastery reported higher levels of behavioral and functional impairment in their disabled spouse and experienced more strain and depressive symptoms associated with caregiving relative to caregivers with lower neuroticism or higher mastery scores. We further showed that the widely reported association between caregiver-assessed impairment of the care recipient and caregiver outcomes can in part be explained by caregivers' personality attributes, such as neuroticism and mastery. Our findings that caregivers' personality variables are related to their assessment of a given objective stressor and their response to a given level of stress have implications for interventions targeting caregivers and for the use of caregivers as proxy informants.

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