Aging Parents as Caregivers of Mentally Ill Adult Children: An Emerging Social Problem

Harriet P. Lefley

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Family Caregiving in Mental Illness Family and Disability Support Research Family Support in Illness

Abstract

More than one-third of long-term mentally ill adults live with their families, most with aging parents, a situation that accentuates the need for residential alternatives to home care for deinstitutionalized patients who will out-live their caregivers. The role of parenting mentally disabled adults may also impose undue stress on elderly persons. Objective and subjective parental burden, including fears for the patient's future, are increased by the mental health system's failure to offer education, support, training in problem solving, and a collaborative role in discharge planning to family members. Social policy implications of considering families as primary caregivers include the danger that government will be relieved of responsibility for care of the mentally ill, the creation of a potentially at-risk population among aging parents and other family members affected by the stresses of caregiving, and the reduction of the patient's potential for independent living.

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References

1978The Structure of Coping 1966The Schizophrenic Patient in the Community and His Effect On the Household 2014American Psychiatric Association 1978Psychological costs of schizophrenia to the family 1974Family Response to the Mental Illness of a Relative: A Review of the Literature 1978Effects of Empty Nest Transition on Self-Report of Psychological and Physical Well-Being 1987The vintage years

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1996Ethnicity, social status, and families' experiences of caring for a mentally ill family member 2000The Last Half-Century of Psychiatric Services as Reflected in Psychiatric Services 1994Predictors of burden among lower socioeconomic status caregivers of persons with chronic mental illness 1995Ethnic Differences in Caregiving Duties and Burdens Among Parents and Siblings of Persons with Severe Mental Illnesses 1994Needs of Family Caregivers in Chronic Schizophrenia 1997Factors associated with subjective burden in siblings of adults with severe mental illness.

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