Savla J, Wang Z, Zhu J, Brossoie N, Roberto KA, Blieszner R. Mastery and Longevity in Spousal Caregivers of Persons with Dementia.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci 2020;
75:1558-1562. [PMID:
30843031 PMCID:
PMC7424271 DOI:
10.1093/geronb/gbz028]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2018] [Accepted: 02/28/2019] [Indexed: 01/03/2023] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
Researchers have consistently shown that providing care in a gradually deteriorating situation, such as dementia, can be stressful and detrimental to the caregiver's (CG) health. Although stressor appraisal is important in understanding variability in CG outcomes, the role of personal mastery, a coping resource, in shaping CG's health outcomes has not been considered. The primary goal of this paper was to determine whether personal mastery is associated with a survival advantage for spousal CGs of persons with dementia.
METHODS
This study assessed the association of CG burden and personal mastery with longevity over a 10-year period in 71 spousal CGs of persons initially diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment.
RESULTS
Over the 10 years, 16 of 71 CGs (23%) died. Cox regression models with right censoring of CGs' time to death showed that after adjusting for the health of family CG, spousal CGs who reported high levels of burden had an 83% reduced risk of death when they also reported high personal mastery (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.17, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.04, 0.65).
CONCLUSIONS
Findings have implications for support programs that help build personal mastery.
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