CARING FOR A FAMILY MEMBER WITH CANCER - PAST COMMUNAL BEHAVIOR AND AFFECTIVE REACTIONS

An important recent development in the caregiving literature is an inc reased focus on the role played by the interpersonal relationship betw een caregiver and care recipient. In this study, a prediction derived from communal relationship theory (Clark & Mills, 1979, 1993; Mills & Clark, 1982) was tested in a sample of patients with recurrent cancer and their family caregivers. Specifically, it was hypothesized that if a relationship had been communal in the past (i.e., characterized by mutual demonstrations of concern for and responsiveness to one another 's needs), positive feelings about helping one's partner should contin ue even when one partner's needs far outweigh those of the other. Cons istent with this hypothesis, results indicated that caregivers whose r elationship with the patient before illness onset had been characteriz ed by relatively infrequent communal behaviors evidenced more symptoms of depression that did those whose relationship had been characterize d by more frequent communal behaviors. In addition, the effects of pri or communal behavior on depressed affect were both mediated and modera ted by feelings of burden. Caregivers who recalled relatively few comm unal behaviors in their past relationship felt more burdened by their caregiving role, and burden in turn predicted greater depressive sympt omatology. Implications for early identification of caregivers at risk for becoming distressed are discussed.