Investigating the Experiences of Caregivers of People with Dementia: The Role of Self-Compassion, Coping Strategies and Caregiver Burden.

Objective: Research has established that providing care for a person with dementia may have a negative influence on carer psychological wellbeing and carers may experience caregiving-related burden. The stress process model has been applied to carers and research has found significant associations between coping strategies and carer burden. Self-compassion has been described as being kind towards oneself when experiencing suffering or inadequacy. Initial research has found that self-compassion may have a positive influence on psychological wellbeing, and research has investigated the relationships between self-compassion, coping strategies and carer burden in carers of people with dementia. The current study aimed to build upon previous research by investigating the relationships between self-compassion, coping and burden with a more ethnically diverse sample. Moreover, the current study sought to investigate problem-focussed coping as well as emotion-focussed and dysfunctional coping strategies. Design: A cross-sectional design was employed, and participants completed an online or paper-based version of a questionnaire battery. Participants: A total of 123 carers were recruited from an NHS memory assessment service, charitable organisations and social media groups. Results: Self-compassion was negatively associated with carer burden and dysfunctional coping strategies. Self-compassion was positively associated with emotion-focussed coping and problem-focussed coping strategies. Dysfunctional coping was found to be a partial mediator of the relationship between self-compassion and carer burden. Significant relationships were not found between emotion-focussed and problem-focussed coping strategies and carer burden, and therefore assumptions for mediation analysis were not met. Conclusions: Self-compassion was associated with lower levels of carer burden, and this relationship was partially mediated by use of fewer dysfunctional coping strategies. These results were consistent with previous research. A marginally more diverse sample was achieved despite active targeting which has wider implications for attempting to recruit diverse samples to psychological research. The clinical and research implications are considered