Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Spouse caregivers of persons with dementia experience multiple disease-related stressors that challenge the maintenance of their familial relationship. This relationship, which originally includes the spouse role, takes on the additional caregiver role over time. Caregivers who have difficulty maintaining these two roles are likely to experience burden. This study explored the identity standards or personal norms people hold for these social roles. We developed items that measured identity standards for spouse and caregiver roles. The 14 items for spouse identity standards were based on relationship maintenance behaviors and indicators of marital satisfaction found in the marital quality literature. The 20 caregiver identity standards were based on task-, need-based, and instrumental behaviors, along with emotional aspects of the role. Participants included 206 spouse caregivers from over 13 states. Over 70 percent of all participants have been caregivers for over 2 years, suggesting that both spouse and caregiver roles are dominant aspects of their relationship identities. This study reports the results of exploratory factor analyses conducted on identity standards. All sets of analyses were conducted using principal axis factor analyses with a varimax rotation. Item factor loadings with values of at least |.40| were retained. Analyses on all identity standard items yielded two separate factors (spouse and caregiver identity standards), explaining 50% of the variance. Analyses on the spouse identity standard items yielded three factors (emotional support, intimacy, companionship) accounting for 61% of the variance. Analyses on the caregiver identity standard items yielded four factors (efficient with care tasks, responsible, attentive, gentle), explaining 56% of the variance. Identifying the dimensionality of spouse and caregiver roles may help direct care workers target their interventions to address specific domains in each role that are most undermined by the caregiving experience.