Premium
Informal and formal support for caregivers of a demented relative: Do gender and kinship make a difference?
Author(s) -
Cossette Sylvie,
Lévesque Louise,
Laurin Liane
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
research in nursing and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1098-240X
pISSN - 0160-6891
DOI - 10.1002/nur.4770180509
Subject(s) - kinship , perspective (graphical) , daughter , psychology , fictive kinship , gerontology , social psychology , developmental psychology , sociology , medicine , political science , artificial intelligence , anthropology , computer science , law
Gender and kinship were examined with regard to caregivers' use of informal and formal support and to two models of support (substitution or supplementation). Three groups of caregivers of a demented relative living at home–husbands, wives, and adult daughters–were compared on measures of both informal and formal support. The gender hypothesis deals with the similarities among caregivers of the same gender with respect to support. The kinship hypothesis refers to the similarities among caregivers having the same kinship with the carereceiver. The gender hypothesis was confirmed for informal informational support while the kinship hypothesis was supported for informal conflictual support. For most of the comparisons, the three groups of caregivers shared more similarities than differences. The interchangeability between informal and formal support seems to fall under the perspective of kinship because the daughter group is the only one where a model of supplementation was observed. ©1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.