The mediating effect of social support and coping strategies on the relation between family stigma and caregiver burden among Israeli Arab family caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD)

Hanan AboJabel, Perla Werner*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Objectives: Many studies have attempted to identify the factors that are associated with caregiver burden among family caregivers of people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), because of its plethora of negative consequences. One unique factor that has been investigated recently is family stigma. However, the path leading from family stigma to caregiver burden has not been thoroughly studied. Hence, this study had two main objectives. The first was to examine whether family stigma was a predictor of caregiver burden among Israeli Arab family caregivers of a person with AD. The second was to examine the interplay of family stigma and caregiver burden with coping strategies and social support. Methods: Structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 175 Israeli Arab family caregivers (adult children and spouses) of elderly people with AD (87.4% female; 71.4% adult children; mean age = 54.28). Results: Overall, the participants reported moderate levels of caregiver burden and family stigma. Additionally, as expected, family stigma made a unique–although modest–contribution to the explanation of caregiver burden. Whereas neither problem-focused coping nor emotion-focused coping played a significant role in mediating the relation between family stigma and caregiving burden, social support did mediate the relation between these variables. Conclusions: Our findings reveal how social support is important as a specific way to reduce the impact of family stigma on caregiver burden.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1597-1603
Number of pages7
JournalAging and Mental Health
Volume26
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

  • caregiver burden
  • coping strategies
  • family caregivers
  • Family stigma
  • social support

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