Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Purpose: Research in family caregiving in schizophrenia has largely focused on mothers. The role of fathers as caregivers has largely been overlooked. With the aging of the population, many fathers of adults with schizophrenia are in their retirement years, which may provide opportunities for them to become more involved in the caregiving role The purpose of this study was to fill this gap in the literature by examining the involvement of aging fathers in the care of adults with schizophrenia and the impact of caregiving on their experience of burden.

Method: The data comes from a longitudinal study on Aging Families of Adults with Schizophrenia. Although the mother was the primary respondent, fathers were asked to participate if they lived in the same household. Of the 164 mothers who were married at the first wave of data collection, 106 husbands agreed to participate. Thus, the sample analyzed consisted of 106 mother/father dyads. The mean ages of the fathers and mothers were 71 and 69, respectively, with the majority being retired. The study also explored differences in the well being of these caregiving fathers to their age peers without caregiving responsibilities in the general population. We used the current wave of data (2004- 2006) from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) to construct a comparison group of non-caregiving fathers who were matched on key demographic characteristics to the fathers of adults with schizophrenia.

Results: Fathers and mothers did not significantly differ in the experience of burden, depression, and psychological well- being. However, fathers reported significantly higher levels of marital satisfaction but perceived their physical health as being poorer. Regression analysis revealed that for both mothers and fathers, behavior problems significantly predicted higher burden whereas higher levels of martial satisfaction was significantly related to lower levels of burden. For fathers but not mothers, the amount of help provided had a significant effect on their experience of burden. Fathers who perceived that they provided more help reported higher levels of burden. Overall, the pattern of these finding suggest that the experience of fathers in caring for an adult child with schizophrenia are much more similar to the experiences of mothers than they are different.

When the caregiving fathers were compared to their same age peers from the WLS sample, fathers of adults with schizophrenia reported significantly higher levels of depression and significantly lower levels of psychological well- being. No differences were observed in their level of marital satisfaction or perceived health status.

Implication: The study has two important practice implications. First, there is a need to design psycho-education programs to attract fathers who, contrary to popular belief, experience similar levels of burden and depression when compared to their wives, and significantly higher depression and poorer psychological well- being when compared to their age peers. Secondly, support services should look into the unique needs of aging fathers whose retirement may lead to an increase in their caregiving responsibilities, which is associated with elevated levels of caregiver burden.