Impact of older adults' oral health on caregiving stress of their family caregivers in the United States: The mediating effect of functional ability.

Abstract

Extensive studies have explored the factors affecting caregiving stress, but how oral health of care recipients (CRs) associates with caregiving stress and the mechanism behind it are not well-known. Guided by Stress Process Theory, this study addressed such research gaps. Caregiver services dataset came from the 13th National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants in the United States (N=1289). Caregiving stress included physical, emotional, and financial stress. The oral health of CRs was self-rated by a single item. The functional ability of CRs was assessed by activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). PROCESS 3.4 for SPSS 26.0 was used to conduct the mediation analyses. Results from the study showed that caregivers reported slightly high levels of physical (M=3.06, SD=1.33, Range =1-5), emotional (M=3.43, SD=1.28, Range =1-5), and financial (M=2.83, SD=1.43, Range =1-5) stress. The results from hierarchical linear regression revealed that poor oral health of CRs was significantly associated with higher levels of physical (B=0.11, p < 0.001), emotional (B=0.09, p < 0.01), and financial (B=0.12, p < 0.001) stress, respectively. The functional ability of CRs mediated such relationships between the oral health of CRs and the caregiving stress of their family caregivers. Findings from this study enrich our theoretical and practical understanding of caregiving stress in aged care and offer programs and policy implications of oral and physical healthcare for community-dwelling older adults.