Adult daughters and aging mothers: The role of guilt in the experience of caregiver burden

Abstract

Although guilt is often identified as being a common emotion experienced by family caregivers in the clinical literature and in small descriptive studies, it has only recently emerged as a construct in the empirical research focused on identifying predictors of caregiver distress. Using Pearlin's stress process model, and based on data from 66 midlife adult daughters caring for aging mothers, we explored the extent to which guilt contributes to caregiver burden. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that guilt was positively correlated with burden and that it accounted for a significant amount of the variance in caregiver's sense of burden even after contextual and stressor variables were controlled. Our research suggests the importance of clinicians seeking to understand how individuals judge their caregiving performance and targeting negative self-appraisals, which affect individuals’ mental health, for change. The challenge for clinicians is to help guilt-ridden caregivers revise their evaluative standards and engage in self-forgiveness and self-acceptance.

Keywords:

• family
• caregiving
• gender roles
• guilt
• stress
• strain

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation. We are deeply indebted to Ravenna Helson for giving us access to the Mills Longitudinal Study data as well as her support and encouragement of our research. We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of the Mills Study participants; their willingness to share their life experiences deepens our understanding of women's development across the life course.