Grandparenting Activities and Mental Health in Northern Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

Grandparenting activities are of increasing interest to researchers seeking to understand reduced social engagement and depression among aging adults. Heterogeneity in the population and caretaking roles complicate its measurement. We piloted a measure of grandparenting activities among 79 grandparents (aged 55+) in Sri Lanka and correlated those activity levels with psychological distress. Second, we explored whether the aforementioned correlation varied by grandparent functional limitations. We found that greater engagement in generative grandparenting activities was correlated with lower distress, and that association was stronger among grandparents with more functional limitations. We discuss possible explanations and implications of these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Healthy aging
• grandparenting activities
• psychosocial distress
• instrumental activities of daily living
• quantitative research
• Sri Lanka

Acknowledgments

The authors thank our study participants, as well as Thavachchelvi Rasan, Shajeetha Thuraiappah, and Emma Navajas, who were instrumental to the implementation of this study. We thank them for their time and dedication to the project. This research was supported by a National Institute on Aging P30 NA collaborative grant. Database management was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, through Grant Award Number UL1TR001111 for REDCap. The writing of this manuscript was partially supported by a National Service Research Award Post-Doctoral Traineeship from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality sponsored by the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Grant No. 2T32 HS000032-30. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH or other funding agencies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Note that at the time of research, Sri Lanka was a lower-middle income country, and at the time of submission, it was classified as an upper-middle income country.

2. Although co-residence is currently common, the World Bank (2008) anticipates that socioeconomic and demographic changes will lead to a greater number of older adults living alone or in assisted living/institutional settings in the future.

3. In Sri Lanka’s private sector, 55 years of age is the usual retirement age for men, and 50 years of age for women (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), 2015, p. 20). Public sector employees must retire and take their pension by age 60 (ibid, p. 16).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [2T32 HS000032-30]; National Institute on Aging [P30 NA].