THE STRESS PROCESS AMONG DEMENTIA SPOUSE CAREGIVERS - ARE CAREGIVERS AT RISK FOR NEGATIVE HEALTH BEHAVIOR-CHANGE

This study examines the relationship between the demands of providing care to a spouse with dementia and caregiver health behaviors, specifi cally exercise, sleep patterns, weight maintenance, smoking, and alcoh ol consumption, Structural equation modeling was used to test a model predicting health behavior change from personal and environmental char acteristics, perceived stress, social support, and depressive symptoms in a sample of 233 spouse caregivers of dementia patients and to exam ine gender differences in these relationships. Results support the hyp othesis that caregiving negatively influences health behaviors. Among both women and men, health behavior change is directly influenced by d epressive symptoms and objective burden. In addition, depressive sympt oms mediate the effects of self-efficacy and objective burden on healt h behavior change. These results support the notion that health behavi or change may represent one mechanism by which caregiving stress leads to adverse health outcomes.