Family conflict from the perspective of adult child caregivers

This study examines how care recipient impairment and family conflict affect adult children caregivers’ stress. A particular focus is on how the gender of the adult child moderates the relationships among care recipient impairment, family conflict, and caregiver stress. Based on a nationally representative sample of 861 adult child caregivers, structural equation modeling indicates that family conflict mediates the relationship between care recipient impairment and caregiver stress. In addition, gender plays a key moderator role; that is, the relationship between care recipient impairment and family conflict is stronger for caregiving sons than for caregiving daughters. Overall, however, adult sons and daughters experience the stress process similarly.