Social environments of dementia caregivers: Relationships between social support, negative social interactions, and caregiver emotional distress

The evidence linking the stress of dementia caregiving to negative mental and physical health is compelling and consistent. Research shows that supportive social interaction may help reduce some of the emotional burden experienced by dementia caregivers. However, empirical evidence also suggests that even a few negative social interactions can negate the ameliorative effects of positive social exchanges. Furthermore, the literature suggests that relationships with family and non-familial social contacts are qualitatively disparate. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between positive and negative social exchange in familial and non-familial social contexts. Study variables included aspects of the caregiving situation (i.e., caregiver gender, coresidence with the care recipient), care recipient characteristics (i.e., degree of impairment, behavioral symptoms), caregiver perceived social support and negative interactions with family and non-family contacts, and caregiver emotional distress. The findings of the current investigation provide preliminary evidence that social interactions with family and non-family social network members have differential effects on the emotional well-being of caregivers. Specifically, higher levels of emotional support from family may tend to reduce overall caregiver emotional distress while emotional support from non-familial sources may bolster the caregivers optimistic outlook on the experience of caregiving. Furthermore, negative social interactions with family and non-familial social contacts was not a significant predictor of caregiver outcome variables in the present study, though this finding may have been non-significant due to limited power or restricted range in the negative social interaction scores. Investigation of variables that may reduce the burden experienced by caregivers is essential to the development of effective treatment of the increasing number of individuals that assume the caregiving role each year. This study has shown that investigation of familial and non-familial social contact and psychological well-being of dementia caregivers is fruitful in furthering the understanding the complex interplay of social and psychological factors in the experience of caregiver burden.