Influences of self-care in the context of caregiving for a spouse with a brain tumor: a theoretical model

Page 55

42 more, felt they had less social support, and less self-efficacy. These led to less satisfaction with the caregiving situation and poorer quality of life and even more burden. Positive religious coping was not associated with levels of optimism, support, or selfefficacy (Pearce et al., 2006). Rabinowitz and colleagues (2009, 2010) explored the relationship between religiosity and health behaviors in female caregivers of older adults with dementia. They examined caregiver health behavior patterns and three dimensions of religiosity as 1) organizational religiosity that includes attendance at religious events; 2) nonorganizational religiosity such as prayer; and 3) subjective religiousity that is about the importance of religion in one's life. White caregivers who had increased subjective religiosity also had an increase in cumulative health risk compared to Latinas, who were more likely to use prayer as coping and had more improved dietary habits. Caregivers with increased levels of subjective religiosity were significantly associated with decreased routine exercise regimens regardless of ethnic group (Rabinowitz et al., 2009). When the researchers examined positive and negative religious coping, they found positive religious coping predicted a reduction of cumulative health risk in Latinas but not in White caregivers. They also found negative religious coping to correlate with greater weight gain, adding to health risk (Rabinowitz et al., 2010). Service Use. Sharlach et al. (2008) conducted phone surveys of over 1,500 California households with individuals aged 50 or older with disability or illness. The researchers wanted to examine whether race and ethnicity were contributors to the differential use of caregiver support services.Their sample included non-Hispanic White (61%), Latino or Hispanic (25%), African American (6%) and Asian, Native Hawaiian or