Sources of support and interpersonal stress in the networks of married caregiving daughters: findings from a 2-year longitudinal study.

Abstract

This research uses data collected on 57 married daughters and 1,069 members of their social networks to examine patterns of social support and interpersonal stress across the first two years of caring for parents with dementia. Reports by the caregivers indicated that friends were the most prominent source of emotional support, while siblings were the greatest source of instrumental support and interpersonal stress, both shortly after the parent's diagnosis and two years later. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that associates who had cared for family members themselves were more likely to have been sources of instrumental support both shortly after diagnosis and two years later. Caregiving similarity was also the most important factor in explaining both emotional support and interpersonal stress at T1; however, its effect diminished across the subsequent two years. These findings suggest that experiential similarity may become less important in explaining some dimensions of interpersonal relations as individuals move further from status transitions.