Informal Caregiver Burden and Potential Consequences

Abstract

Providing care to an adult loved one is often described as a burden, but it can also promote flourishing. The present study examined the extent to which state hope and emotion regulation strategies of positive reappraisal and emotional suppression might account for the relation of burden on both burnout and flourishing in a sample of 162 informal caregivers (54.8% women; Mage = 42.92, SDage = 13.22). It was hypothesized that state hope would mediate the relationship between caregiver burden and both outcomes, with state hope being positively related to flourishing and negatively related to burnout. It was also hypothesized that positive reappraisal and emotional suppression would mediate the relationship between caregivers’ burden and the outcomes, with positive reappraisal predicting greater flourishing and emotional suppression predicting greater burnout, as well as less flourishing. Participants were recruited from the Prolific crowd sourcing platform and had been pre-screened as informal and unpaid caregivers of an adult. They completed a battery of questionnaires that were all self-report in nature for the cross-sectional design. Results indicate that only state hope mediated the relationship between caregiver burden and the outcomes of burnout and flourishing. Contrary to what was hypothesized, emotion regulation strategy was not a mechanism in these relationships. State hope could be a potential avenue for intervention for informal caregivers in that it may impact caregiver burden as well as burnout and flourishing.