(Withdrawn) Associations of Family Resilience Factors and Family Adaptation on Taiwanese Family Caregivers Living with Mental Illness

Background and Purpose

Many social work discussions concerning mental illness include family members, particularly caregivers. When a family member has a mental illness, early studies have emphasized the negative experiences of the family and considered them dysfunctional. Some studies demonstrate that it's family adversity. However, with family resilience, there arises a view of how balance, adaptation, and being stronger in these families. In Taiwan, family resilience has been gradually emphasized in practice. By contrast, related research is still in its early stages, using qualitative research as the primary method. Therefore, through quantitative research, this study has two goals. First, to explore the relationship between adversity and family adaptation; and second, to predict protective and risk factors that influence family adaptation.

Methods

This study purposely sampled 171 participants from 27 mental rehabilitation associations around Taiwan, social media, and non-profit organizations introduced by friends. Factors of adversity were defined by the mental illness background, including duration of the mental illness, the frequency of hospitalization for the mental illness, diagnosis of the mental illness, and degree of disability. Protective and risk factors were examined by family communication/problem solving, social and economic resources, positive outlook and family spirituality, and caregiver burden. The study assumed that factors of adversity and high risk reduced family adaptation. On the other hand, diverse high protective factors represented good family adaptation. Multiple regression analysis was applied to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results

The findings were as follows:

1. High communication/problem solving, family spirituality, and low caregiver burden were associated with good family adaptation.
2. Communication/problem solving had proven to be a more significant prediction than caregiver burden.
3. There wasn't a significant difference in family adaptation among the duration of the mental illness, the frequency of hospitalization for the mental illness, the diagnosis of the mental illness, and the degree of disability.

Conclusions and Implications

Based on the findings, some protective and risk factors can significantly affect family adaptation. At the practitioner level, social workers should assess families’ previous effective communication and group these experiences into a pattern for themselves. In addition, service plans should take into account the importance of spirituality in the illness process for families, such as how to explain the illness' meaning, provide support, and deal with difficulties. Moreover, whether it implies that these families face similar challenges in the current social environment when there is no difference in mental illness backgrounds, even for mild disability' families. That is, policy about mental illness should be re-examined. Conclusively, establishing enough resources and a more friendly social context for these families is needed.