ADULT CHILDRENS PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO PROVIDE CARE FOR DEPENDENT ELDERLY PARENTS

We examined how adult children in Canada whose parents were hospitaliz ed in an acute care setting perceived responsibility for their parents ' care. Using a visual analogue scale, adult children rated the amount of financial, emotional, and physical support families ''should'' and ''could'' give to elderly persons described in four vignettes. All sc ores were high, with ''should'' consistently higher than ''could'' for every vignette and for each of the three types of support. For daught ers, the more aggressive the parent, the lower the ''should'' score fo r financial support. The same relationship was observed for incontinen ce and these findings were consistent over all four vignettes.