In heart failure care, couples maintain habitual care-sharing patterns until the patient's declining ability forces a shift, requiring caregivers to balance self-interest and patient interest.
The cases illustrate how long-term dyads attempt to share the patient's HF care according to established patterns developed over the trajectory of their relationship. In keeping with the interdependence theory, these couples react to the patient's declining ability to contribute to his/her own care by maintaining their habitual pattern until forced to shift. This original pattern may or may not have involved the dyad working together. As the patient's dependence on the caregiver increases, the caregiver must decide whether to react out of self-interest or the patient's interest. Continued study of the typology is needed in nonspousal/partner dyads.
Buck et al. (Thu,) studied this question.