The boundary permeability patterns associated with managing private information in family eldercare relationships

Abstract

The present study utilized the retrospective interview technique to illuminate boundary permeability patterns adult children observed while providing care to their older parent. Twenty-seven individuals who self-identified as a caregiver to a parent were interviewed to identify turning points representing permeability changes in their parents’ boundaries around their private information. The four boundary permeability patterns that emerged from these data were the crescendo, oscillation, relinquishment, and segmenting patterns. These findings center communication changes as one way to understand the relational changes in the older parent-adult child eldercare relationship by showing that access to older parents’ private information emerged as distinctive marker indicating the beginning of the parental caregiver transition and subsequent changes throughout the eldercare relationship.