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Can Culture Help Explain the Physical Health Effects of Caregiving Over Time Among African American Caregivers?

¹ Department of Health Policy and Administration, School of Public Health
² Carolina Program for Healthcare and Aging Research, Institute on Aging
³ Department of Allied Health Sciences, Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Address correspondence to Dr. Peggye Dilworth-Anderson, Department of Health Policy and Administration, School of Public Health, 1102D McGavran-Greenberg Hall, CB 7411, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7411. E-mail: pdilworth{at}mail.schsr.unc.edu

Objectives. The purposes of this study were to longitudinally examine the health outcomes of 107 African American caregivers who provided care to their elderly dependent family members and to determine the role of culture in predicting health outcomes.

Methods. With use of the stress and coping model of Pearlin and colleagues (1990) as a guide, the direct effects of background characteristics and stressors and the direct and mediating effects of resources (including culture) on two caregiver health outcomes (i.e., psychosocial health and physical functioning) were analyzed with hierarchical multiple regression analyses.

Results. Similar to other studies, we found that combinations of caregiver background characteristics, stressors, and resources at wave 1 had direct effects on African American caregivers' health outcomes at wave 3. Unlike previous studies, where culture was not measured, we found that cultural beliefs and values did help to explain health outcomes for African American caregivers. Specifically, culture justifications for caregiving, baseline psychosocial health, and caregiving mastery predicted wave 3 psychosocial health. Caregiver education, number of morbidities, and physical functioning at wave 1 were associated with physical functioning at wave 3.

Discussion. The findings from this study have implications for future studies, particularly in regard to cultural beliefs and values among African American caregivers.

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