Yes / Postwar migrants from the Caribbean and Indian subcontinent (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) to the UK are now experiencing the onset of age-related diseases such as dementia. Our evidence base, both quantitative and qualitative, documenting the experiences of family caregivers of people with dementia is largely drawn from studies undertaken with white European, North American, and Australasian populations. Consequently, there is a need for research in the field of dementia caregiving to reflect the increasing diversity in ethnic identities of the older adult population of the UK. Using semistructured interviews, we investigated the experiences of 18 caregivers of people with dementia in Black Caribbean, Black African, and South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi) communities in England. Participants were recruited from the Join Dementia Research platform and were predominantly female intergenerational carers. We identified the following three themes: motivation to care (spending time with the care recipient and reciprocity), positive and negative consequences of caregiving (rewards and consequences), and the cultural context of caregiving (cultural norms and values supporting caregiving and negative attitudes towards dementia). Our findings develop existing literature by identifying (a) the importance of spending time with the person they care for, (b) the absence of faith as a caregiving driver, and (c) the challenge of watching the declining health of a parent. We highlight how the different motivations to care are intertwined and dynamic. This is illustrated by the linking of obligation and reciprocity in our dataset and positive and negative experiences of caregiving. / Alzheimer's Society. Grant Numbers: 348, AS-PR2-16-001. National Institute for Health Research

Caregiving to the elderly in both the paid and unpaid spheres involves a crucial component, emotion management, that is often invisible despite its importance to the delivery of care. As well, little is known about how caregivers’ emotion management in one setting is related to its expression in another. This thesis is an exploration to gain a greater understanding of the ways in which the contexts of caregiving shape the emotion management involved, in hopes of contributing to the knowledge of an important dimension of caregiving and women’s work in the two spheres. Based on the narratives of women who work as caregivers in both the paid and unpaid spheres simultaneously, I use a socialist-feminist perspective to analyze the ideology and structure that shape contexts in which emotion management occurs in caregiving. I explore how these contexts affect the experience of emotion management, and how the contexts might impact one another and the emotion management performed in each. / Master of Science

The parenting literature has long explored the influence that socioeconomic status has on parenting practices, but more recent theorists have suggested that contextual factors may influence or explain this relation in some capacity. The current study sought to explore the influence of these contextual factors within a nationwide sample of caregiving grandparents. The results indicate that grandparental financial well-being, depressive symptoms, scarcity of resources, and grandparenting practices share significant associations. Further, contextual factors (i.e., grandparental depressive symptoms and access to resources) mediate the relation between financial well-being and both the positive and negative grandparenting practices that are employed. These findings suggest that there are additional factors that may better explain differences in parenting practices employed by a group of caregivers who are typically within lower socioeconomic strata. This may allow for more targeted interventions to further support a large proportion of child caregivers.

A qualitative study of 15 families caring for an elderly parent in a noninstitutional setting was conducted for the purpose of discovering how families perceive and carry out their responsibilities to their older relatives. Forty-three persons representing up to three generations per family were interviewed. They articulated the meaning of their responsibility to care for the parent, how they learned to be responsible to family members, and what experiences inside and outside the family shaped their sense of responsibility. They expressed their views about how family caregiving labor should be divided between male and female members. Questions about the factors that affected use of services provided by persons other than family were asked of all families. Results suggested that caregiving in this context requires balancing the needs of the parent with those of the whole family. Caregivers learn their responsibilities through incorporating family member expectations, through role modeling of family and friends, and through a continuous process of role-making. A sense of filial responsibility is shaped by feelings and interpersonal ties within the multigenerational family. Although respondents were divided in their thinking about which gender was best suited to assist the aged parent, most families practiced a very traditional gendered division of labor when helping their parents. Of the factors affecting use of formal care services, need of the older person for additional assistance was the most important. The family’s sense of responsibility was not altered by use of formal care services. Data from this study advance development of family caregiving theory by specifying relationships among perceptions of responsibility to the older person, individual and family ethos, and family caregiving patterns, and by delineating the components of family ethos. Findings affirm previous theoretical work on factors that affect family use of formal services. Results demonstrate that formal care services are valued by elderly persons and their families, and suggest the need for long-term care policies that offer home care services to all disabled adults. Findings indicate that obtaining data from multiple family members is desirable when seeking information about family relationships that contribute to family caregiving patterns. / Ph. D.

No / Objectives: The sociocultural model of stress and coping, which despite receiving support from several studies conducted with diverse ethnic groups, has yet to be tested longitudinally or used within the context of positive caregiver outcomes. The aim of the current study was to test a specific component of the model, which posits that caregiver coping will be influenced by the cultural value of familism (feelings of solidarity and loyalty among family members), which will in turn affect caregiver outcomes. Method: A questionnaire was completed by 123 family caregivers in the UK assessing familism, use of coping strategies, caregiver gains, anxiety and depression at three time points over nine months. Results: Mediation analysis followed guidelines proposed by Baron and Kenny. Religious coping and positive reframing at time 2 (T2) were found to significantly mediate between familism values at time 1 (T1) and caregiver gains at time 3 (T3). Behavioural disengagement at T2 was found to mediate between familism at T1 and caregiver depression atT3. Additionally familism was found to be positively associated with both negative and positive aspects of caregiving. Conclusion: Our longitudinal findings suggest that interventions and services acknowledging caregiver values and the associated coping responses may prove beneficial.

No description available.

No description available.

Cette thèse a pour objectif d’éprouver la mise en actes du dispositif de prise en soins dans la relation d’aides ausujet fragile à domicile. Ce travail est envisagé par une étude multidimensionnelle des caractéristiquespsychologiques liées à l’acte d'aide à domicile et celles de leurs conséquences en termes de psychopathologies etde qualité de vie. Selon les données de notre étude, le profil du dispositif de prendre soin à domicile s’ancre dansun axe très médicalisé. Un axe qui va à l’encontre des besoins et attentes des sujets fragiles comme de leursaidants qui soulignent une nécessité fondamentale de lien social. Parallèlement, nous constatons que lesdispositifs de prendre soins à domicile, aujourd'hui mis en place, ne sont pas de « vraies réponses » et restentencore largement sous-utilisés. L’Aidant-Expert n’est pas soutenu dans la construction de ses proprescompétences à savoir-faire et savoir-être. Il est dans l’incapacité de venir dire quelque chose de sa réalité du vécude l’aide ou de souligner la complexité des situations de prise en soins investies. Les résultats de ces travauxsoulignent, par ailleurs, un risque élevé d’accidents à domicile renforçant un sentiment de vigilance extrême. Cesdonnées vont dans le sens de l’analyse plus fine des réels besoins et attentes des acteurs de l’aide. In fine, cettethèse permet de mettre en exergue des recommandations à envisager pour une prise en soins adaptée du sujetfragile et de son entourage à domicile. En effet, la prise en considération de l’expérience collective del’environnement d’exercice de l’aide permettra de venir contrebalancer les effets délétères de cette prise en soinspermettant alors une mise en actes au plus juste du dispositif à domicile. / Our work aims at enhancing the quality of home caregiving for vulnerable patients. This objective is assessedvia a multidimensional study evaluating psychological characteristics of home caregiving, and also theconsequences of these acts on mental health and quality of life.Our data show that the structure of home caregiving is mainly of medical significance. A significance thatresponds to expectations of patients and their caregivers, and also the social interactions between both caregivingactors. We hence conclude that the actual structure of home caregiving does not refers to “right answers” andstill widely underused. Furthermore, the expert caregivers are likely to lack structuring of their competencies, asrelated to their know-how and life skills. These professionals show great difficulties expressing 1) the nature oftheir professional experience and 2) the complexity of some of their tasks. Another finding of our work is relatedto a high risk of home accidents which induces an important level of alertness. This outcome fits with a detailedanalysis of caregivers’ needs. Finally, our work highlights some recommendations for a better home caregivingfor vulnerable populations and their families. It seems that taking into account the collective experience of thecaregiving environment would address the deleterious effects of home caregiving, which may enhance thequality and efficiency of such intervention.

Optimal responsiveness to infant cues, an integral component of parental caregiving, is thought to be determined by multiple factors including maternal mood, previous experiences of caregiving, and infant characteristics. This thesis builds on previous work and details novel investigations of brain, affective, and attitudinal responses to infants/children. In the first two studies, we investigated the effects of maternal mood and parity (previous experiences of caregiving) on brain response to affectively positive infant pictures using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that mothers with postpartum depression showed an elevated right amygdala response to infant pictures in comparison to mothers without PPD and depressed non- mothers. Further, functional connectivity between the bilateral amygdalae and the right insular cortex was negatively correlated with clinical symptoms (self-reported depression and anxiety). Therefore, as depression and anxiety symptoms increased amygdala to insular cortex connectivity decreases and vice versa. In the third study, we developed a novel data-driven infant cuteness (DDIcute) metric using the infant pictures presented in the first two studies. In line with ethological postulations on cuteness (infant characteristics), we found that infant pictures with a higher DDIcute score were associated with increased positive/approach-related affective responses and decreased negative/avoidant-related affective responses. In the fourth study, we investigated whether the sex differences in attitudes about children and childcare were moderated by pet ownership/care (previous experiences of caregiving). We found that pet ownership and care eliminated sex differences in attitudes about children and childcare. This effect was driven by males; compared to males with low levels of experience caring for pets, males with high levels of experience caring for pets had more positive attitudes about children and childcare. / Thesis / Doctor of Science (PhD) / The work presented in this thesis adds to literature on human caregiving. In different studies we investigated brain, emotional, and attitudinal responses to human babies and children in people with and without depression as well as in people with different levels of caregiving experience. In the first two studies, we measured brain response to smiling baby pictures in depressed and non-depressed mothers and non-mothers. The amygdala is a brain region that is involved in the neurobiology underlying both depression and maternal behaviour. We found that amygdala response was the highest among mothers with postpartum depression. We also found that the coupled activity of the left and right amygdalae and another brain region called the insula was altered in mothers with postpartum depression. In the third study, we measured facial features of the baby faces presented in the first two studies to develop a measure of cuteness. We also measured emotional responses to the baby faces. We found that cuter infants elicited more positive and less negative emotional responses. In the fourth study, we measured differences in attitudes about children and caregiving between men and women who did and did not own and care for pets—specifically dogs and/or cats. We found that compared to men who did not own and/or care for pets, men who had more experience caring for pets had more positive attitudes about children and childcare.

Huntington's Disease (HD) is a rare condition that has been under-researched by the medical professions and psychologists alike. There is a clear lack of psychological literature on the subject of HD and furthermore, there are no adequate QoL scales available for use by spousal carers. The development of a HD specific QoL scale (HDQoL-C) for this special population, brings together theoretical constructs and practical application in order to produce a user-friendly QoL measurement for spousal carers of HD patients.