African American and White Mothers of Adults with Chronic Disabilities: Caregiving Burden and Satisfaction

Abstract

African American and White Mothers of Adults With Chronic Disabilities: Caregiving Burden and Satisfaction* Rachel Pruchno, Ph.D.,** Julie Hicks Patrick, and Christopher J. Burant A model is developed and tested that explains the effects of race on the caregiving experience by patterning relationships between race and several causal agents. Data from 741 White and 100 African American women with adult children having chronic disabilities revealed that while the African American and White subsamples differed from one another in terms of age, education, income, living arrangements, physical health, caregiving burden, and caregiving satisfaction, race had no direct or indirect influence on either caregiving burden or caregiving satisfaction. Rather, variables representing the sociocultural, interpersonal, situational, temporal, and personal contexts which relate to race explained the observed variance in both caregiving burden and caregiving satisfaction. Key Words: caregiving, chronic disability, race. Although African American caregivers typically have lower incomes (Hinrichsen & Ramirez, 1992), are less well-educated (Staples, 1981; Young & Kahana, 1995), are in poorer health (Gibson & Jackson, 1987; Markides, 1989; Mui, 1992; Young & Kahana, 1995), are more likely to be widowed at earlier ages (Hinrichsen & Ramirez, 1992; Mui, 1992), and care for more impaired relatives (Mui, 1992; Young & Kahana, 1995) than their White counterparts, studies indicate that they report lower levels of caregiving burden (Hinrichsen & Ramirez, 1992; Lawton, Rajagopal, Brody, & Kleban, 1992; Macera, 1992; Mintzer & Macera, 1992; Mui, 1992; Young & Kahana, 1995), lower levels of grief (Struening et al., 1995), lower levels of depression, anger, and hostility (Haley et al., 1995; Miller, Campbell, Farran, Kaufman, & Davis, 1995) and higher levels of caregiver satisfaction (Lawton et al., 1992). These unexpected, yet consistent trends beg for explanation. The analyses that follow will develop and test a model that explains the effects of race on the caregiving experience by patterning relationships between race and the ecological niche in which caregiving occurs. The contexts that will be explored, based on a model described by Dilworth-Anderson and Anderson (1994) include the sociocultural, interpersonal, situational, temporal, and personal. These relationships will be examined using data from a sample of mothers who have adult children with chronic disabilities. Examination will focus on the mechanisms that link these contextual variables to the caregiving experience. Attempts to explain why African American caregivers generally fare better than their White counterparts, despite experiencing more stressors and having fewer resources, have taken several different approaches. On the one hand, there have been suggestions that studies may be contrasting the most fit African Americans, those people who have survived to old age, with a more heterogeneous group of Whites (Gibson, 1982; Jackson, Chatters, & Neighbors, 1982; Manton, Poss, & Wing, 1979; Markides & Black, 1996; Taylor, 1985). A second, related explanation suggests that African Americans may be more resilient to the psychological effects of caregiving than Whites because they are more likely to have experienced a lifetime of adversity (Neighbors, Jackson, Bowman, & Gurin, 1983; Rodgers-Rose, 1980; Spurlock, 1984; Taylor & Chatters, 1986). In fact, some researchers have suggested that Black caregivers may even derive unique benefits and satisfactions from the caregiving role (Dilworth-Anderson & Anderson, 1994; Lawton et al., 1992). A third approach has begun to examine various cultural traditions that result in the empowerment of African American, but not White caregivers. Among the cultural traditions that have been examined are family role involvement, social support, and participation in church activities (Anderson, 1991; Angel & Tienda, 1982; Chatters, Taylor & Jackson, 1985; Coke, 1992; Dungee-Anderson & Beckett, 1992; McAdoo, 1978; Mitchell & Register, 1984; Mutran, 1985; Segall & Wykle, 1988; Taylor, 1986). …