Intergenerational Caregiving: The Role of Attachment and Mental Representation of Caregiving in Filial Anxiety of Middle-Aged Children

Adult children may experience filial anxiety when anticipating the need to care for their aging parents. To investigate the extent to which attachment and mental representation of caregiving predict filial anxiety, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 304 middle-age adults with at least one l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of Intergenerational relationships Vol. 17; no. 4; pp. 468 - 487
Main Authors Morais, Diana Maria Da Costa Bizarro, Faria, Carla Maria Gomes Marques, Fernandes, Lia Paula Nogueira Sousa
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 02.10.2019
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Adult children
Aging
Anxiety
Attachment
Caregiving
Cross-sectional studies
filial anxiety
Intergenerational caregiving
mental representation of caregiving
Middle age
Parent-child relations
Parents & parenting
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Summary:Adult children may experience filial anxiety when anticipating the need to care for their aging parents. To investigate the extent to which attachment and mental representation of caregiving predict filial anxiety, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 304 middle-age adults with at least one living parent aged 65 or more. Results suggest that the variance in filial anxiety is mainly accounted for by the mental representation of caregiving and then by attachment. These findings suggest that mental representation of caregiving and attachment are important dimensions to consider when adult children feel unprepared and worried with the need to care for their aging parents.
ISSN:1535-0770
1535-0932
DOI:10.1080/15350770.2019.1596187