1. Introduction
Caring for dependent elderly people has been linked to negative
physical and psychological consequences for the caregivers
(Pinquart and So¨ rensen, 2003). Caregivers have to deal with a
range of demands. One of the most widely reported findings in the
literature on caregiving refers to the number of hours caregivers
devote to care duties. The title of Nancy Mace’s well known book,
‘‘The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People with
Alzheimer Disease’’ (Mace and Rabins, 2006), refers to one of the
feelings most often reported by caregivers: they feel that they
devote all their time to care. Clearly, caregiving is more than a ‘‘fulltime
job’’, and can have substantial consequences for the
caregiver’s life. For example, Schulz and Beach (1999) found in a
longitudinal study that the mortality risks in those who
experienced caregiver strain were 63% higher than those in noncaregiver
controls.
One of the theoretical models that has guided most research in
caregiving is the stress and coping model adapted to caregiving
(Haley et al., 1987). According to this model, caregivers are
exposed to stressors (for example, patient’s cognitive impairment
or disability in self-care) which, depending on different mediating