Associations Between Family Caregiving and Romantic Relationships: An Exploratory Study With Nondistressed Couples Caring for an Outside Family Member.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Family caregiving-providing emotional and physical health care for a family member or friend with an illness or disability-can result in many outcomes, including stress and beneficial experiences. Both romantic and caregiving relationships are complex and varied. Nevertheless, little research has examined how caregiving and romantic relationships influence one another. The purpose of this study was to understand ways romantic partners who care for a family member outside of their romantic relationship perceive that their romantic relationship and caregiving experiences influence one another. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A qualitative study using thematic analysis was conducted. A sample of 5 couples where one or both partners were caring for a relative with dementia participated in interviews about their experiences in family caregiving and in their romantic relationship, as well as how the 2 roles interacted with each other. Couple members were interviewed separately and together. RESULTS: From these interviews, themes reflecting ways that caregiving influences romantic relationships, as well as ways romantic relationships influence caregiving emerged. Themes about caregiving influencing romantic relationships were caregiver stress interacting in the romantic relationship, the romantic relationship becoming less of a priority, and benefits experienced in the romantic relationship due to caregiving. Themes about romantic relationships influencing caregiving were partners improving the caregiving experience, and workload inequality. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: These findings broaden our understanding of how dyadic coping affects family caregiving and may suggest ways that the mutual influences caregivers experience between romantic relationships and caregiving benefits and challenges.

A Caregiver Perspective for Partners of PTSD Survivors: Understanding the Experiences of Partners.

Research affirms that survivors of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experience psychological distress that affects their romantic partners, and that a bi-directional effect between PTSD symptoms and romantic relationship satisfaction exists, indicating that improvements in the romantic relationship may lead to the improved well-being of the survivor. Indeed, as romantic partners of PTSD survivors are both negatively impacted by the distress of the survivor, and romantic relationship satisfaction can affect the distress of the PTSD survivor, partners are a key stakeholder for mental health. Unfortunately, theoretical models have not adequately captured the experience of this population to properly illuminate their experience and provide appropriate treatment directives. This paper examines the informal caregiving integrative model to determine its applicability to the romantic partners of PTSD survivors with respect to the determinants, mediators, and outcomes. The current literature on romantic partners is used to evaluate the adequacy of fit, as well as to provide the components unique to partners. Future directions, clinical implications, and limitations of current research are explored based on the results of this review.

Testing a self-determination theory perspective of informal caregiving: A preliminary study.

Informal caregivers provide valuable care for ill or disabled adults. Nevertheless, many caregivers experience negative consequences from caregiving such as reduced mental health. Balancing personal costs of caregiving with caregivers' desires or obligations to provide care, is necessary to promote the well-being of these individuals and their care recipients. Drawing on a self-determination theory (SDT) perspective, caregivers whose psychological needs for relatedness, autonomy, and competence are satisfied with their care recipient, and their care recipients' healthcare providers, should be more autonomously motivated to care. Greater autonomous motivation should promote better mental health. This study tested mediation models in a sample of 158 caregivers in the United States. Autonomous motivation was examined as a mediator of the (a) associations between caregivers' need satisfaction with their care recipient and caregiver burden and depressive symptoms, and (b) associations between caregivers' autonomy support received from their care recipients' healthcare providers and caregiver burden and depressive symptoms. Next, specific types of motivation that vary in their relative autonomy were examined as unique mediators. Support was found for models using autonomous motivation as the mediator. Additionally, caregivers' autonomy support and female caregivers' need satisfaction were positively associated with intrinsic motivation to care which was negatively associated with burden. Although much research suggests caregivers' outcomes stem from the care recipients' condition, such as their functional dependence on others, the present study focused on the caregivers' relationships and motivations. Results support an SDT perspective of caregiving. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

A Paradigm for Understanding Adolescent Social Anxiety with Unfamiliar Peers: Conceptual Foundations and Directions for Future Research.

Adolescents who experience social anxiety concerns often display symptoms and impairments when interacting with unfamiliar peers. For adolescent clients, reducing symptoms and impairments within these interactions comprises a key treatment target within exposure-based therapies for social anxiety. Recent work on mechanisms of change in exposure-based therapies highlights the need for therapeutic exposures to simulate real-world manifestations of anxiety-provoking social situations. Yet, researchers encounter difficulty with gathering ecologically valid data about social interactions with unfamiliar peers. The lack of these data inhibits building an evidence base for understanding, assessing, and treating adolescent clients whose concerns manifest within these social interactions. Consequently, we developed a paradigm for understanding adolescent social anxiety within social interactions with unfamiliar peers. In this paradigm, we train peer confederates to interact with adolescents as if they were a same-age peer, within a battery of social interaction tasks that mimic key characteristics of therapeutic exposures. Leveraging experimental psychopathology and multi-modal assessment approaches, this paradigm allows for understanding core components of social interactions with unfamiliar peers relevant to exposure-based therapy, including stimuli variability, habituation, expectancy violations, peers' impressions about socially anxious adolescents, and maladaptive coping strategies that inhibit learning from exposures (e.g., safety behaviors). We detail the conceptual and empirical foundations of this paradigm, highlight important directions for future research, and report "proof of concept" data supporting these research directions. The Unfamiliar Peer Paradigm opens new doors for building a basic science that informs evidence-based services for social anxiety, within clinically relevant contexts in adolescents' social worlds.

Suicide Risk Among Transgender People: A Prevalent Problem in Critical Need of Empirical and Theoretical Research.

Transgender individuals are at increased risk for suicide relative to nontransgender people. Despite this, research on transgender people's risk for suicide mirrors their marginalization at the societal level; there is simply not enough research dedicated to understanding increased suicide risk among transgender people. This article presents a brief review of what is known regarding the prevalence and correlates of suicide-related thoughts and behaviors among transgender people and offers perspective regarding what theories of suicide may be pertinent to understanding and addressing increased suicide risk within this population. We also summarize strengths and limitations of the current body of work to provide impetus for additional and improved research on this important problem.