Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

8-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Psychological and Brain Sciences

Degree Program

Clinical Psychology, PhD

Committee Chair

Mast, Benjamin

Committee Member

Rebholz, Whitney

Committee Member

Stetson, Barbara

Committee Member

Haynes, Lora

Author's Keywords

dementia; caregiving; caregiving styles; caregiver; geropsychology

Abstract

As dementia rates increase, effective family caregivers are crucial to meeting the increasing demand for dementia care. However, dementia caregiving is a demanding experience, and caregivers have varying strategies for providing care, leading to positive and negative outcomes and appraisals of their caregiving experience. Limited research explores this relationship, and extant work is qualitative with no clinical measure. This study adapted a pre-existing framework/measure from a different caregiver population (parents) to explore a) if the same framework applied to both caregiving populations and b) the associations between the styles and psychological well-being and other caregiving variables. Exploratory Factor Analysis tested the framework fit via comparing the underlying constructs of the original and adapted measure. One-way ANOVAS and Chi-Squared Tests for Independence tested the associations between the styles and other variables. Results suggested the parenting styles framework did not match the dementia caregiver experience, however, the adapted measure (The Dementia Caregiving Styles Inventory) represented dementia caregivers’ experience via two different factors: Quality of Engagement and Respect for Autonomy. Caregivers were categorized into high and low groups for each factor, and the interaction of those groups resulted in four dementia caregiving styles: Harmonious, Paternal, Discordant, and Detached. Multiple relationships between the Dementia Caregiving Styles and other dementia caregiving variables were statistically significant. These findings provided construct validity for the new Dementia Caregiving Styles framework and distinct, though preliminary, profiles for each style. These styles could provide individualized insight into a dementia caregiver’s experience and inform individualized interventions, though further research is needed.

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