In Sickness and in Health: Spousal Caregivers and The Correlates of Caregiver Outcomes

Marriage vows frequently include a promise to take care of each other in sickness. For some, caring for the sick spouse is an integral part of marital life while for others, it is a burden that breaks the marriage, but for older couples, who have shared a portion of their life together, caregiving seems to grow into a routine affair. Because of this routineness, partners may not define themselves as caregivers although spouses provide a significant amount of caregiving to older adults with functional disability, they have received limited attention from researchers and policy-makers. Here, Park discusses about spousal caregivers and the correlates of caregiver outcomes.