Psychosocial Factors Related to Adverse Outcomes in Heart Failure Caregivers

BACKGROUND: Heart failure (HF) caregivers experience increased demands and burden. Social support and problem solving may influence the effect of these variables on caregiver outcomes. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine whether social support and problem solving mediate relationships among caregiver demands and burden, self-care, depression, and life changes in heart failure caregivers. METHODS: Using a cross-sectional, exploratory design, heart failure caregivers (n = 530) completed online questionnaires on caregiver demands and burden, social support, problem solving, depression, self-care, and life changes. Path analysis examined a hypothesized mediating role of social support and problem solving in the relationships among caregiver demands and burden and caregiver outcomes. The analysis included (1) a model-development phase (n = 329) to make data-based decisions on measurement indicators and model structure and (2) a confirmatory phase (n = 201) to provide unbiased inference on the model structure resulting from the initial phase. RESULTS: Participants were 41.39 (±10.38) years old and primarily white (78.3%) men (50.9%) caring for a spouse (44.9%). Per the magnitudes of the estimated path coefficients, social support mediated the relationship between caregiver burden and depression but did not relevantly mediate the relationship between caregiver burden and self-care or caregiver life changes. In the presence of social support as a parallel mediator, problem solving was not a relevant mediator between caregiver burden and demands and caregiver outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Social support mediates the effects of caregiver burden on depression but has little effect on self-care or life changes. In the presence of social support, problem solving does not mediate the effects of caregiver demands and burden on caregiver outcomes.