Mothers' and Daughters' Paternalism Beliefs and Caregiving Decision Making

Abstract

The study investigated whether both mothers' and daughters' paternalism beliefs influenced the daughters' paternalistic caregiving decision making. Fifty mother-daughter dyads (mothers' age was 82.6, daughters' age was 54.9), where daughters provided at least 10 hours of caregiving help weekly and mothers retained their cognitive functioning, were interviewed individually. Each was assessed on paternalism beliefs, instrumental activities of daily living, the number of paternalistic caregiving decisions made by the daughter, conflict over caregiving decisions, and satisfaction with the decisions. Both mother's and daughter's paternalism beliefs were related to the number of the daughter's paternalistic decisions, as was the degree of the mother's dependency (p < .05). Daughters'reports of conflict over decisions were related to differences in mothers' and daughters' paternalism beliefs, whereas mothers' reports of conflict were related only to the daughters' paternalism beliefs. Decision satisfaction was unrelated to beliefs. Implications for practitioners are suggested.

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