TOWARD A CROSS-CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING OF FAMILY CAREGIVING BURDEN

This article is part of a symposium describing the development of cros s-culturally relevant instruments to measure familism, caregiver burde n, and quality of elder caregiving among Anglo- and Mexican American c aregivers. This article explores issues involved in measuring caregivi ng burden. Caregiving burden is thought to adversely affect family car egiving, but the influence of culture on perceptions of burden has not been explored. Because no research focuses on caregiving burden among Mexican American caregivers, the first step involved reviewing the li terature for cultural factors influencing care giving and using the ex pertise of the cross-cultural team to identify and compare the meaning of caregiving burden in both groups. Next, two instrumentation studie s were done to analyze the items on Poulshock and Deimling's Burden In strument for comparable meaning and internal consistency within and be tween groups. The third step involved assessing the validity of Poulsh ock and Deimling's conceptualization of burden cross-culturally.