Care-receiver (Child)The physical o

Care-receiver (Child)
The physical or psychologic state of the caregiver
(parent) as well as the caregiver’s perception
about the child’s problems can also affect the
physical or psychologic state of the child. Corbin
and Strauss (1988) show that personal distress in
the caregiver correlates with an increase in withdrawn
and apathetic behavior in the care-receiver.
Negative feelings held by the parent may correlate
with the degree of mood disturbance or depression
by the child (Bennett, 1994). Heightened feelings
of sadness, helplessness, and worthlessness in the
child may contribute to the burden of the parent.
Family
Conflict. Conflicts can occur in fulfilling different
roles because of the number of roles and role
obligations. The negative consequences of caregiving
stem not simply from feeling compelled to
provide care, but from the conflict between feeling
obligated to provide care versus feeling anger at
having to provide care. Family/marital conflict is
common when examining caregiver burden. It has
been reported that 30% to 56% of caregivers
experience family or marital conflict as a result of
burden created by providing care to a chronically ill
child (Knafl, 1993; Sabbeth & Leventhal, 1984).
Financial costs. People with a special-needs
child face unique financial problems (Rowland,
1989). Because of the demanding nature of the
caregiving experience, caregivers may have to stop
working or work part-time to provide care. Other
researchers also report that financial problems
occur within the family in the care of the chronically
ill family member (range, 11% to 42%)
(Kurnat & Moore, 1999).
Health Care System
Family caregiving can save billions of dollars
that would otherwise be required for long-term
hospitalization and care. Without the involvement
of family caregivers, current public long-term care
expenditures would at least double (Rowland,
1989).
In summary, the evaluation of multiple consequences
is highly desirable because individuals
have different social locations, psychologic characteristics,
caregiving situations, and mediating processes
resulting in the manifestations of burden.
Overall, the process of burden is a continuing
process that typically starts with a specific trigger
event. The event may or may not cause burden.
This depends on the individual’s subjective perception.
This perception may be affected by the
individual’s characteristics, psychological factors,
other mediators, and the interaction between the
individual and the event. The consequences resulting
from caregiver burden are multifaceted and
these consequences may also cause burden indirectly
by altering adversely or positively our life
situations. If the situation is viewed adversely,
more complicated antecedents will negatively affect the entire process. On the contrary, when the
situation becomes tolerable, it helps to positively
restructure the entire situation. Thus, the perceived
burden by the individual is not caused by any one
of the domains but by the interaction among them.
Figure 1 represents the conceptual model of burden
and depicts the relationship among predisposing
factors, mediators or moderators, and consequences.
EMPIRICAL REFERENTS
The final step in this analysis is to identify the
empirical referents that show how the concept is
measured in the real world. In an effort to capture
subjective perception of burden, several researchers
have generated various measures (Novack &
Guest, 1989; Whiteley et al., 1999; Zarit et al.,
1980).