Relationship between caregiving stress and depressive symptoms of family caregivers of the person with IDs under COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong : the mediating role of perceived control

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between caregiving stress and depressive symptoms among family caregivers of people with intellectual disabilities (IDs) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong. Caregiving stress consists of three components. It includes the key characteristics of family caregivers, caregiving difficulty, and perceived burden. The mediating role of perceived control in this relationship was also examined. The bootstrapping mediation analysis was completed using Process Model 4. Forty-six family caregivers had completed the survey. The results revealed that the difficulty in providing care and caregivers’ perceived burden predicted depressive symptoms on family caregivers directly, but not the key characteristics of the family caregivers. Nevertheless, perceived control was a significant mediator in the relationship between each components of caregiving stress and depressive symptoms. In other words, caregiving stress that associated with low perceived control, predicts depressive symptoms on family caregivers of people with IDs.