The Paths to Negative and Positive Experiences of Informal Caregiving in Severe Mental Illness: A Study of Explanatory Models

Luísa Campos, Carlos Mota Cardoso and João Marques-Teixeira
Additional contact information
Luísa Campos: Faculty of Education and Psychology, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, 4169-005 Porto, Portugal
Carlos Mota Cardoso: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto, R. Alfredo Allen, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal
João Marques-Teixeira: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto, R. Alfredo Allen, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 19, 1-14

Abstract: The experience of caregiving in severe mental illness is a valuable concept for research and clinical practice as it can provide access to the idiosyncratic assessment of negative and positive dimensions of informal caregiving, thus allowing the design of interventions focused on reducing risk factors and promoting protective factors. This study was aimed at testing explanatory models of negative and positive experiences of caregiving considering the role of the caregiver’s perceptions of difficulties, satisfaction, and coping. A convenience sample of 159 informal caregivers of patients with schizophrenia was used in this study. Different variables were considered: (1) perception of difficulties (Caregiver’s Assessment of Difficulties Index); (2) perception of satisfaction (Caregiver’s Assessment of Satisfaction Index); (3) perception of coping (Caregiver’s Assessment of Managing Index); and (4) the experience of caregiving (Experience of Caregiving Inventory). Using structural equation modeling, the results revealed the following: (1) the perception of difficulties and of satisfaction coexist; (2) the negative experiences of caregiving are predominantly explained by the perception of difficulties and of coping with stress; and (3) the positive experiences of caregiving are mainly explained by the perception of sources of intrapersonal satisfaction, while the perception of coping does not have robust predictive value.

Keywords: experience of caregiving; informal caregivers; severe mental illness; schizophrenia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/19/3530/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/19/3530/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:19:p:3530-:d:269350

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().