Centre for Policy on Ageing



New burdens or more of the same? — comparing grandparent, spouse, and adult-child caregivers
Author(s)	William J Strawbridge, Margaret I Wallhagen, Sarah J Shema
Journal title	The Gerontologist, vol 37, no 4, August 1997
Pages	pp 505-510
Keywords	Family care ; Spouses ; Children [offspring] ; Grandparents ; Stress ; Mental disorder ; Health [elderly] ; United States of America.
Annotation	This study compared the health of 42 grandparent, 44 spouse, and 130 adult-child caregivers with 1,669 non-caregivers in 1994 and 1974, in California, US. In 1994, all three caregiver groups had poorer mental health than the non-caregivers; grandparent caregivers also had poorer physical health and greater activity limitations. Spouse and adult child caregivers had not differed from the non-caregivers 20 years prior, but grandparent caregivers had experienced poorer health than the non-caregivers and more stressful life events than the other caregivers. The study concluded that caregiving appears to add new burdens to otherwise normal lives for spouse and adult-child caregivers, while being yet another aspect of a difficult life course for grandparent caregivers. (AKM).
Accession Number	CPA-980608403 A
Classmark	P6:SJ: SN: SS: SW: QNH: E: CC: 7T
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.