Another Side to Caregiving

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Abstract
Until recently, caregiving research focused almost exclusively on caregivers of older adults with health problems, and there was little focus on care recipients perceptions of the care they receive. The present article reviews relevant research on reactions to caregiving assistance. Several recent studies indicate that help in these contexts can be viewed negatively by care recipients. As many as two thirds of physically impaired older adults who receive assistance with daily activities, such as preparing meals, climbing stairs, or dressing, experience negative reactions to some of the help they receive. Negative reactions seem to have important consequences for the care recipient, because they are associated with higher depression concurrently and 1 year later. Because some of the findings are inconsistent with theoretical models of negative responses to help, an alternative framework, based on socialsupport and social-conflict research, is briefly proposed.