Dyadic Ambivalence in Couples Managing Early-Stage Alzheimer's Disease: Linking Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia to Life Satisfaction.

OBJECTIVES: Caring for a spouse with Alzheimer's disease (AD) can elicit considerable distress but there are also positive moments. A growing body of work has examined caregivers' ambivalence in the care relationship and linked it to negative caregiver outcomes such as depression, but dyadic assessments of both parties' perspectives are missing. We examined ambivalence in both people with AD and their spousal caregivers, seeking to identify the correlates and well-being outcomes of such ambivalence in this unique context. METHODS: Participants included 72 couples managing early-stage AD. People with AD and spousal caregivers independently self-reported positive and negative relationship qualities (used to indirectly calculate their ambivalence) and life satisfaction. Caregivers reported both partners' demographic characteristics and their spouses' behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), focusing on memory-related behaviors and psychological symptoms. RESULTS: Path analyses revealed that the number and frequency of psychological symptoms in people with AD were positively associated with their own and caregivers' ambivalence. Caregivers' distress ratings of memory-related behaviors and psychological symptoms were positively associated with their ambivalence. Greater ambivalence was associated with lower life satisfaction in both spouses. BPSD directly affected both spouses' life satisfaction but there were also indirect effects via ambivalence. DISCUSSION: This study utilizes a dyadic approach to assess ambivalence in dementia care. Findings reveal the conflicting emotions that couples experience as they cope with early-stage AD, identify sources of such ambivalence, and shed light on the development of dyadic interventions that can promote positive outcomes in both partners.

Empathy and support exchanges in couples coping with early-stage Alzheimer's disease.

OBJECTIVES: Research has extensively examined spousal caregiving in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but it remains unclear how people with AD help spousal caregivers. We aimed to describe emotional and practical support that people with AD and their spouses provide to each other and test the role their empathy plays in these support experiences. METHODS: Seventy-two people with early-stage AD and their spousal caregivers independently reported empathy (personal distress, empathic concern, perspective taking) and the frequency and appraisal of support provision. Caregivers reported both partners' sociodemographic characteristics. RESULTS: People with early-stage AD and their spousal caregivers provided support to each other often. Caregivers provided more support but people with AD appraised support provision as more pleasant and less stressful. Lower personal distress in both partners and greater caregiver empathic concern were associated with more frequent caregiver support to people with AD. Greater empathic concern and perspective taking were associated with more pleasant appraisals of helping. Personal distress was positively associated with stress of helping. CONCLUSION: Findings describe support reciprocity in early-stage AD and debunk the myth of people with AD being only recipients of care. We identify risk and resilience in couples per empathy and inform the design of dyadic interventions to promote mutually beneficial relationships in AD.

Uncovering paradoxes of compassion at work: a dyadic study of compassionate leader behavior.

In today's business world, organizations tend to overlook that employees face suffering caused by work and non-work-related events that can negatively impact business organizations in the long run. One way to address this challenge is through leadership acknowledging and alleviating employees' suffering to ensure a company's success. However, research on compassion and leadership in business settings is still relatively scarce. In this study, we aim to extend the organizational compassion literature by addressing our research question: "What are paradoxes induced by compassionate leader behavior in the workplace in the context of social hierarchy?". We conducted a qualitative exploratory study based on 12 semi-structured interviews with six dyads of leaders and their direct subordinates from small, medium, and large firms representing different industries. The findings of our study indicate that compassionate leader behavior goes hand-in-hand with paradoxical situations that both leader and member face in the workplace, supporting the proposition that compassion as a social, interpersonal process is complex and multi-faceted. Our analysis identified 6 compassion paradoxes that spring from compassion from a leader towards a member. Our study differentiates from other research of compassion paradoxes in the sense that it also focuses on the interplay between leader and member. From that perspective, the findings of our study indicate that social hierarchy is playing a crucial role and exacerbating some paradoxical tensions. This consideration implies that to be effective, compassionate leaders need to have or develop the ability to continuously transcend those compassion paradoxes, as well as support their members in transcending the paradoxes they find themselves dealing with. Thus, the findings of our study contribute to management literature in the field of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) by highlighting compassion as a critical element of dyadic leader-subordinate relationships that could be reinforced by systematically building more competence in leaders and members to navigate the tensions emerging from the identified compassion paradoxes. Additionally, we provide limitations and recommendations for further research, along with several theoretical and practical implications of the results, which are particularly relevant for practitioners such as managing directors, leaders, employees, human resource managers, academics, and business and HR consultants.

Adolescent problematic gaming and its association with maternal behaviors: A dyadic study focusing on the relational-emotional correlates.

INTRODUCTION: Associations between Problematic Gaming (PG) and the relational-emotional correlates of parenting have been reported in the literature. Previous research mostly collected information from adolescents, however, and suggested that little is known about the perceptions of parents and whether these are shared among parent-adolescent dyads. Therefore, this study aimed to (a) examine multiple informants' reports of adolescent PG and maternal behaviors (i.e., warmth and indifference) and (b) disentangle the associations between the behaviors shared by mothers and adolescents from those unique to each member. METHOD: Data were collected by using self-administered online questionnaires from 137 Italian mother-adolescent dyads in Italy. The mean age of adolescents (n = 92 males, n = 42 females, n = 3 nonbinary) was 14.68 (±1.25) years and that of mothers 47.48 (±4.69) years. Descriptive statistics and common fate model (CFM) analyses were conducted. RESULTS: Mothers reported higher scores of their offspring's PG. Within-reporter interclass correlations revealed positive associations between maternal indifference and adolescent PG for both informants. CFM indicated that correlations between maternal behaviors and adolescent PG based on shared perceptions did not reach statistical significance, whereas correlations based on unique mothers' perceptions were statistically significant for all the observed relationships. CONCLUSIONS: In the context of adolescent PG, mothers may have a heightened motivation to perceive their parenting as crucial. The multi-informant approach allows a more accurate examination of the associations between adolescent PG and maternal behaviors and underscores the need to consider discordant assessment of the same phenomenon between mothers and adolescents.

Individual and dyadic network analyses of depressive symptoms in Chinese postpartum couples: A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: The network approach to psychopathology is symptom oriented and may open new possibilities for intervention development and health care practices in postpartum depression. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the individual and dyadic symptom network of postpartum depression in Chinese mothers and fathers in the very early postpartum period. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study was conducted. SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: A total of 457 couples in the 2∼3 days postpartum period was recruited consecutively from a hospital in Guangzhou, China from September 2020 to April 2021. METHODS: The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and socio-demographic and obstetric data sheet were used to collect data. We estimated the individual symptom networks of postpartum mothers and fathers separately and a dyadic symptom network that consisted of symptoms of both spouses. Network characteristics including global strength and node centralities were analyzed and systematically compared. RESULTS: Strength centralities in the individual networks showed acceptable stability [Correlation stability coefficient (CS) for mothers = 0.60; CS for fathers = 0.52]. The central depressive symptoms in mothers were Crying (Zstrength = 1.32), Overwhelmed (Zstrength = 1.01) and Sad mood (Zstrength = 0.93). The central depressive symptom in fathers was Sad Mood (Zstrength = 1.35). The symptom "Crying" had a distinctive link to thoughts of self-harm in fathers. The symptom network of mothers (global strength = 4.15) was more interconnected than that of fathers (global strength = 3.74). There was a statistically significant but unstable within-couple connection of thoughts of self-harm (CS = 0.21). CONCLUSIONS: Postpartum mothers are more vulnerable to activation spreads of depressive symptoms than postpartum fathers. Symptoms including "Sad mood", "Overwhelmed" and "Crying" warrant the attention of health care providers. Investigations with larger sample sizes and gender-sensitive instruments are needed to further unfold the individual and dyadic symptom dynamics of postpartum depression.

The Impact of Pandemic on Couples With Cancer: Examining the Role of Cancer-Related Communication on Cancer-Related Distress Via the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model.

The present study draws attention to the significance of considering cancer-related communication on cancer-related distress through the vulnerability-stress-adaptation model among couples with cancer during the pandemic. This is a quantitative dyadic study with a sample of 80 couples (N = 160). Dyadic data were analyzed among couples with cancer to examine the within-person (actor effects) and between-partner (partner effects) associations among links between cancer-related communication and cancer-related distress through the use of actor-partner interdependence models. Significant actor and partner effects were found for cancer-related communication in partners facing cancer, a factor that predicted cancer-related distress. The findings underscore the need to adopt a systemic perspective that accounts for multiple, simultaneous adaptive processes including cancer-related communication as influences on cancer-related distress in the time of COVID-19.

Daily analysis of autonomy support and well-being in patient-caregiver dyads facing haematopoietic cell transplantation.

OBJECTIVES: Caregivers may restore patient self-determination in disease by supporting their autonomy, and thus enhance their well-being. In this study, we investigated the between- and within-person effects of recipient-reported and provider-reported autonomy support on patient daily biopsychosocial well-being in patient-caregiver dyads following haematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). DESIGN: A dyadic daily-diary study conducted for 28 days after patients' hospital discharge following HCT. METHODS: Patients and their caregivers (N = 200) participated in a 28-day daily-diary study. They completed measures of daily autonomy support reception (patients) and provision (caregivers), subjective physical health, affect (positive/negative), and relationship satisfaction. RESULTS: The patient's feeling of being supported in their autonomy was associated with their better positive affect and relationship satisfaction, both overall (between-person effect) and daily (within-person effect). Caregiver-reported overall and daily support of patient autonomy did not predict patient daily biopsychosocial well-being. CONCLUSIONS: These findings extended the evidence that autonomy support reported by patients facing HCT may have both accumulative and acute beneficial effects on their psychological and social well-being.

Conditional regard, stress, and dyadic adjustment in primiparous couples: A dyadic analysis perspective.

Many couples transitioning into parenthood are at risk for dyadic adjustment declines. It is therefore important to explore key, theory-driven deterrents of enduring relationships during this period, as well as potential underlying mechanisms. This study examined the relationship between perceived conditional negative regard (i.e. a behavior that thwarts basic psychological needs; T1), stress (T1), and dyadic adjustment (T2) during the transition to parenthood. Primiparous couples (N = 144) were recruited to fill out an online questionnaire when their babies were 6-months (T1) and 12-months (T2). Path analysis with an Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Model was conducted. Results show that for each partner (actor effects), stress (T1) mediated the link between perceived conditional negative regard (T1), and later dyadic adjustment (T2). For the partner effects, while stress (T1) did not play a mediating role between these variables, other partner effects were found. Each primiparous parent's perceived conditional negative regard (T1) was associated with the other parent's later dyadic adjustment (T2). However, when examining longitudinal changes in stress and dyadic adjustment over time (T2, controlling for respective T1), no significant associations were found. Overall, the findings shed light on the dyadic associations of conditional negative regard, and the mechanisms through which it is negatively tied with dyadic adjustment during the transition to parenthood.

Protective Buffering and Individual and Relational Adjustment Following Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Dyadic Daily-Diary Study.

BACKGROUND: Supportive communication (e.g., protective buffering, PB) may impact individual and relational adjustment in patients following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and their caregivers. Previous studies revealed that PB (i.e., hiding one's concerns and denying one's worries) has mixed effects, namely it is beneficial, costly or unrelated to dyadic adjustment. This study aimed to verify these findings by addressing some unresolved issues, i.e., examining (1) both individual and relational as well as both positive and negative indicators of adjustment, (2) the effect of within-dyad congruence (i.e., complementarity/similarity) in PB, and (3) within-dyad causal associations between PB and adjustment. METHODS: Two hundred patients (following first autologous or allogeneic HSCT) and their caregivers independently completed measures of daily PB, relationship satisfaction, relationship stress, and positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) for 28 consecutive evenings after discharge of patients. FINDINGS: For both patients and caregivers, the results showed a same-day association between daily PB and individual (positive and negative) and relational (positive and negative) adjustment indicators showing the advantage of PB. In terms of the dyad congruence, complementarity (one partner high and the other low) in daily PB was related to higher same-day relationship satisfaction for both patients and caregivers and lower same-day relationship stress in caregivers. The benefits from similarity (both patient and caregiver high or low in PB) had delayed effects, although only in patients. As far as the causal associations were concerned, day-to-day changes in PB preceded changes in daily adjustment. In caregivers, reverse causality was found, i.e., changes in adjustment predicted next-day changes in support. DISCUSSION: Contrary to previous studies, daily PB has a rather beneficial effect in dyads following HSCT. Patients seemed to have benefited the most from the similarity in daily PB fluctuation, while caregivers profited from complementarity. Causal associations between PB and adjustment within-dyad were also different. The findings may add to a better understanding of PB-adjustment relationship in dyads facing HSCT.

Productive and social engagement following driving cessation: a couple-based analysis.

Drawing on interdependence theory, this study examined the cross-spouse impact of driving cessation on productive (work, formal volunteering, and informal volunteering) and social engagement of older couples aged 65+ using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (1998-2010; N = 1,457 couples). Multilevel modeling results indicate that driving cessation reduced husbands' productive and social engagement, and wives' productive engagement. Spousal driving cessation reduced husbands' likelihood of working or formal volunteering, and wives' likelihood of working or informal volunteering. The more time since spousal driving cessation, the less likely husbands were to work and the less likely wives were to formally volunteer. Results suggest the need for greater recognition of the impact of driving cessation on couples, rather than just individuals, as well as the need for enhanced services or rehabilitation efforts to maintain driving even among couples with one remaining driver.