Impact of older adults' oral health on caregiving stress of their family caregivers in the United States

Extensive studies have explored the factors affecting caregiving stress, but how oral health of care recipients (CRs) associates with caregiving stress and the mechanism behind it are not well-known. Guided by Stress Process Theory, this study addressed such research gaps. Caregiver services dataset came from the 13th National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants in the United States (N = 1289). Caregiving stress included physical, emotional, and financial stress. The oral health of CRs was self-rated by a single item. The functional ability of CRs was assessed by activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). PROCESS 3.4 for SPSS 26.0 was used to conduct the mediation analyses. Results from the study showed that caregivers reported slightly high levels of physical (M = 3.06, SD = 1.33, Range = 1-5), emotional (M = 3.43, SD = 1.28, Range = 1-5), and financial (M = 2.83, SD = 1.43, Range = 1-5) stress. The results from hierarchical linear regression revealed that poor oral health of CRs was significantly associated with higher levels of physical (B = 0.11, p < 0.001), emotional (B = 0.09, p < 0.01), and financial (B = 0.12, p < 0.001) stress, respectively. The functional ability of CRs mediated such relationships between the oral health of CRs and the caregiving stress of their family caregivers. Findings from this study enrich our theoretical and practical understanding of caregiving stress in aged care and offer programs and policy implications of oral and physical healthcare for community-dwelling older adults

Activities of daily living · Caregiver stress · Dementia · Family caregivers · Health care · Mediation · Psychiatry · Stress (linguistics · Clinical Psychology · Dental Health and Care Utilization · Health disparities and outcomes · Health, psychology, and well-being · Medicine · Psychology · Gerontology · Internal Medicine

• Analyzing and Interpreting Data From Likert-Type Scales

  Gail M Sullivan, Anthony R Artino•Journal of Graduate Medical…•2013

  Añadir item

• Improving the oral health of older people

  Open Access•Poul Erik Petersen, Tatsuo Yamamoto•Community Dentistry and Oral…•2005

  Añadir item

• Ending the neglect of global oral health

  Open Access•Ronald G Watts, Richard G Watt et al.•The Lancet•2019

  Añadir item

• Oral diseases

  Open Access•Marco A Peres, L M D Macpherson et al.•The Lancet•2019

  Añadir item

• Likert scales, levels of measurement and the “laws” of statistics

  Open Access•Geoff Norman, Geoffrey R Norman•Advances in Health Sciences…•2010

  Añadir item

• Relatives of the Impaired Elderly

  Steven H Zarit, Karen E Reever et al.•The Gerontologist•1980

  Añadir item

• Oral Health—A Neglected Aspect of Subjective Well-Being in Later Life

  Patrick Rouxel, Georgios Tsakos et al.•The Journals of Gerontology…•2016

  Añadir item

• Caregiving and the Stress Process

  Leonard I Pearlin, Joseph T Mullan et al.•The Gerontologist•1990

  Añadir item