Coping and Caregiver Well-Being: The Impact of Maladaptive Strategies

With a national sample of 597 caregivers of non-institutionalized dementia patients, we examine the specific coping strategies that caregivers use and how they are associated with negative and positive outcomes for the caregivers. Results from this study indicate that although caregivers used predominately "problem- focused" coping strategies, the use of these strategies were not associated with lower caregiver burden. In contrast, "avoidant-evasive" and "regressive" coping strategies were most damaging in terms of their association with lower levels of life satisfaction and higher levels of caregiver burden. Implications for practitioners and intervention programs are discussed.