Caregiving Appraisal Among Adult-Child Caregivers of Frail Old People in China: The Effects of Culture Value and Social Support (WITHDRAWN)

Background and Purpose: Chinese traditional culture emphasizes the responsibility of family to provide care services for older adults and assumes that only lack of the support from family are cared by the government. Family caregivers are taking the responsibility to enable frail older adults to ‘age in place’. Caregivers’ burden and satisfaction not only have impact on their well-being, but also affect the decision to move older adults to institutional facilities. To examine the social support and culture value of family caregivers of frail old people living in the community and the degree to which characteristics were associated with appraisal, this paper discussed about the influence of culture values such as culture value and social support characteristics on the process of caregiving.

Methods: This study was conducted from April 2015 to June 2015 and adopted a multi-stage, cross-sectional survey design. Random sampling method was used to select adult-child caregivers in Beijing, China. Caregivers were interviewed to respond to measures of social support (including family network and friends/neighbors network), culture value (including pragmatic obligations, compassionate reverence, reciprocity and authoritarian), caregiving appraisal (including burden and satisfaction), caregiving hours, physical condition and some other socio-demographic factors. Data were analyzed by multiple linear regression.

Results: Caregiver burden was affected by not only caregivers’ self-rated health condition but also older adults’ health condition. After controlling socio-demographic characteristics, self-rated health condition, old adults’ health condition and caregiving hours factors, several factors related to culture value and social support were found significant influence on caregiving burden, namely pragmatic obligations, authoritarian and friends/neighbors network (p<0.05). Meanwhile, gender and caregivers’ self-rated health condition was found related to caregiving satisfaction. After controlling the same factors, several factors related to culture value and social network were added into the model. Finally, family network was found significantly related to caregiving satisfaction (p<0.05).

Conclusion and implications: In Asian societies, which preserve family as the basic unit of society, culture value and social support are very important factors for children’s caregiving appraisal. However, research on caregiving appraisal that measures filial piety was limited. This study examined the factors associated with the burden and satisfaction of caring for frail older adults, especially focusing on the roles of culture value and social support on caregiving. It provided insights that culture value and social support could play important roles on caregiving in Chinese society.

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