The Mexican American caregiving experience

Although family caregiving among non-Hispanic Whites (NHW) has been studied extensively, relatively little is known about the caregiving experience in Mexican American (MA) families. This article compares 196 MA caregivers to 165 NHW caregivers and describes differences in rile caregiving structure and caregiving experience. For caregiving structure,,more MA caregivers wer e adult children even though the elder had a living spouse, MA caregivers p rovided less help, fewer MAs lived,pith elders, and MA elders had better fu nctional abilities, in spite of having similar health problems to their NHW counterparts For caregiving experience, MA care givers had and used less s ocial support felt less social restriction and less change in elder-caregiv er-family relationships, had poorer health, and evaluated their role perfor mance better than NHW caregivers.