Relationship Status and Quality Are Associated With Perceived Benefits of Caregiving for People With Heart Failure.
Amanda Glickman, Susan Mikulich-Gilbertson, Martha Abshire Saylor and 2 others
PMID 38509047WHAT IT FOUND
Heart failure caregivers who felt closer to the person they care for reported more benefit from caregiving.
Over 12 months, changes in relationship quality tracked changes in perceived benefit. This is an association, not proof that improving relationships causes benefit.
Key findings
01At baseline, female caregivers and partners or spouses reported greater benefit finding, and higher relationship quality, lower depression, and lower burden were associated with greater benefit finding.
02Over 12 months, improvement in relationship quality predicted improvement in benefit finding after adjusting for partner or spouse status and gender.
03Changes in depression and burden were not significantly associated with change in benefit finding, so combined models were not evaluated.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The caregivers were mostly female, white, and partners or spouses, so the results may not apply to more diverse caregivers. Only 57 caregivers had complete data at both timepoints, and those who completed follow-up were older and more likely to be partners or spouses, so attrition may have biased the change analyses. The analysis did not include care recipient characteristics because of sample size limits, even though care recipients and caregivers influence one another. The study was observational and did not test an intervention, so it cannot show that improving relationship quality causes greater benefit finding. Relationship quality explained relatively low variability in benefit finding, so other unmeasured factors likely matter.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. No funding source is stated in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that improving caregiver relationship quality will increase benefit finding. The study was observational and did not test an intervention; it found that relationship quality and benefit finding changed together over time.