Primary Caregiving Stressors and Late Life Parents of Adults with Serious Mental Illness

For parents of children with serious mental illness, the caregiving stress process is multifaceted and dynamic. As such, it is likely that the consequences of caregiving stressors on parental outcomes will vary over time, requiring interventions tailored to the meet the unique needs of families at different points in the life course. Still, there is little empirical evidence available on the caregiving stress process among parents coping with a child's mental illness in late-life. However, older parents of adult children with serious mental illness (SMI) may be especially vulnerable as age-related changes in their own health may be exacerbated by stresses associated with caregiving. Applying Pearlin's Stress Process Model as an overarching framework, this study explored the relationship between primary stressors (adult child's duration of illness, behavior problems, coresidence, and psychiatric hospitalizations) and parental health and mental health status and caregiving burden among late life parents of adult children with SMI.

The data are drawn from the most recent wave of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), a random sample of 10,317 young men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957 and of their randomly selected brothers and sisters (Hauser and Sewell, 1985; Hauser and Warren, 1997). The present analysis is based primarily on data from the fourth wave of the WLS which provided a rare opportunity to examine the impact of primary caregiving stressors when the parents were in their mid-60s. Through a series of screening procedures, we identified 103 respondents in the fourth wave of the WLS who were parents of adult children with SMI.

Controlling for the parent's gender and IQ status, the adult child's behavior problems were significantly related to higher levels of caregiving burden, and parents whose adult children with SMI lived in their homes reported a greater number of somatic health symptoms and more depressive symptoms, measured by the CESD (Radloff, 1977). Interestingly, a greater number of psychiatric hospitalizations among adult children with SMI were significantly related to lower levels of parental depressive symptoms and better physical health functioning, measured by the SF-12 (Ware et al., 1996).

Findings from this study suggest that several caregiving stressors known to have adverse effects on the health and mental health of midlife parents of children with SMI, continue to have negative consequences in later life. Surprisingly, the number of psychiatric hospitalizations was protective in the lives of aging parents coping with an adult child's SMI. This may be an indication that the availability of intense psychiatric services during acute illness episodes has benefits that reach beyond the consumer, to protect the health of other family caregivers. Consistent with the theme, “Research that promotes sustainability and builds strengths,” findings from this study suggest points of intervention in working with families who are coping with a serious mental illness in later stages of the life course.