Abstract
The stress that accompanies caring for one’s parent, and the contribution of that stress to adverse physical and mental-health outcomes, is extensively studied and widely acknowledged. Yet there has been almost no attempt to incorporate the well-documented role of genetic variation in psychological distress into research on caregiving. We use phenotypic data from a large, population-based sample linked to extensive genotype data to develop a polygenic risk score (PRS) for depression, and test for both direct and interactive effects of the PRS in a multilevel repeat-measures model of caregiver-related stress. We distinguish three groups: potential caregivers (those with a living parent who does not need care), noncaregivers (those who do not provide care to their parent that needs care), and caregivers. We also obtain separate estimates according to the gender of both the parent and child. We found that a parent’s need for care, and the child’s provision of care, are associated with depression in some but not all cases; in contrast the PRS was significantly associated with the risk for increased depressive symptoms (with P ≤ 0.01) in all cases. These findings support an additive genetic contribution to the diathesis-stress model of depression in the context of caregiving.
Highlights
Members, especially adult children, are the primary source of hands-on personal care for older adults that need help with everyday activities such as eating, dressing, bathing, using the toilet, or ambulating indoors1
The social–gerontological literature on caregiver outcomes relies heavily on a “caregiver stress process” model[6,7], in which depression and anxiety are key outcomes. The focus of this caregiver stress process framework is on those actively involved in care provision, and the empirical literature on this topic uses almost exclusively either caregiver-only samples, or samples of caregivers matched to samples of people not engaged in care provision
PRS polygenic risk score, ADL activities of daily living aAll sample characteristics computed using data pooled over all measurement occasions bIndividuals in development sample have no living parents cPRS not computed in development sample care for their mothers than for their fathers, and a substantially greater prevalence of care provision by daughters than by sons
Summary
Especially adult children, are the primary source of hands-on personal care for older adults that need help with everyday activities such as eating, dressing, bathing, using the toilet, or ambulating indoors. Among the factors identified as contributing to this heterogeneity of responses are caregiver attributes such as gender and family situation, the severity of the care recipient’s needs and problem behaviors, external supports and resources available to the caregivers, and the caregiver’s personality traits and coping skills[4,5]. The social–gerontological literature on caregiver outcomes relies heavily on a “caregiver stress process” model[6,7], in which depression and anxiety are key outcomes. The focus of this caregiver stress process framework is on those actively involved in care provision, and the empirical literature on this topic uses almost exclusively either caregiver-only samples, or samples of caregivers matched to samples of people not engaged in care provision.
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