Quality of relationship between adult children caregivers and parents with dementia

The main effects for associations between psychosocial stressors and caregiver outcomes are well established, but little is known about the mechanisms of these relationships. Aims of this study were to examine the hypotheses that satisfaction with family relationships (SF) is a mechanism by which quality of relationship (QR) between adult children caregiver and parents with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) influences depression, life satisfaction (LF), and self-rated health (SRH) among these caregivers. The participants were 716 Brazilian adult children who cared for their parents with AD and related disorders. Regression-based path analysis was performed; a PROCESS, bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrapping method was used to test confidence intervals. The relationships between QR and both depression (B = .3263, p < .001) and SRH (B = .3263, p < .001), were fully mediated by SF. The relationship between QR and LF was partially mediated by SF. The primary finding is that SF is one mechanism by which QR relates to depressive symptomatology, self-rated health, and life satisfaction.