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. 2021 Apr;25(4):703-710.
doi: 10.1080/13607863.2020.1711865. Epub 2020 Jan 10.

Factors influencing quality of life in African-American dementia dyads

Kalisha Bonds  1 , Carol J Whitlatch  2 , MinKyoung Song  1 , Karen S Lyons  3
Affiliations

Factors influencing quality of life in African-American dementia dyads

Kalisha Bonds et al. Aging Ment Health. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

Objective: Both caregivers and the older adults they care for can experience declines in quality of life (QOL) over the course of the dementia trajectory. Little research has examined QOL in African-American caregivers and even less in African-American persons with dementia (PWDs), making it difficult to identify associated factors.Method: Guided by the Negro Family as a Social System framework, a secondary data analysis was used to examine the influence of family structure, instrumental and expressive role functions on QOL in a sample of 62 African-American dementia dyads (i.e. African-American PWDs and their African-American caregivers). Dyadic data were analyzed using multilevel modeling to control for the interdependent nature of the data.Results: On average, African-American PWDs reported significantly worse QOL than African-American caregivers. Within African-American dementia dyads, QOL covaried. African-American PWDs experienced significantly worse QOL when their caregiver was a non-spouse and they themselves perceived less involvement in decision-making. In addition, African-American caregivers experienced significantly worse QOL when they reported greater dyadic strain with the African-American PWD and were non-spouses of African-American PWDs.Conclusion: Findings suggest understanding the interpersonal characteristics (e.g., dyadic relationship, family structure and role functions) of dyads may hold promise for improving their QOL.

Keywords: Multilevel modeling; caregiver; decision-making involvement; dyadic strain.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Proposed model from the Negro Family as a Social System (Billingsley, 1968). Each bracket on the left represents a network of interdependent relationships. The rectangles list the subsystems represented in each relationship (bolded text) and how these subsystems were operationalized as study variables. The arrows represent the proposed relationships between the network of relationships and subsystems associated with QOL. AA = African American PWD = person with dementia.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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