Gender Differences in the Community Service Use Attitudes of Older Spousal Caregiver-Care Recipient Couples

Abstract

ABSTRACT Prior research has consistently overlooked spousal care recipients' attitudes toward service use within the caregiver-care recipient dyadic context. To address this gap in knowledge, this exploratory study collected data from both caregiver and care recipient spousal informants to compare their community service use attitudes by gender. This study employed a purposive sample of 30 older spousal caregiver-care recipient couples (N = 60). Service use attitude measures were adapted from the Community Service Attitude Inventory. For the entire sample, caregivers and care recipients had similar attitude scores at the group level of comparison. In the caregiver subsample, female spousal caregivers reported a higher level of confidence in service system compared with male spousal caregivers. Male spousal caregivers reported a higher worry and fear attitude compared with female spousal caregivers. In the care recipient subsample, female spousal care recipients reported a higher wait-and-see attitude compared with male spousal care recipients. The findings support the need to assess specific gender-related service use attitudes of older spousal couples in research and practice contexts.