Chapter 9: Suffering and Compassion in Older Adult Caregiving Relationships

Families provide the majority of health care to older individuals around the world. This “free” help is a major benefit to society, but comes at considerable cost to the family member who may as a result experience reduced quality of life and adverse health effects. The functional disability of the care recipient and the pragmatic challenges of providing care are typically identified as the primary determinants of adverse caregiver outcomes. We augment this view by showing how suffering and compassion in caregiving relationships are key contributing factors to caregiver health and well-being. We first define what we mean by suffering and compassion, review the recent caregiving literature on suffering, and present a refined model showing the relation between suffering, compassion, and caregiver health. We then place our model in a cultural context and distinguish between culturally invariant components of our model from those that are likely to vary from one cultural context to another. We conclude with recommendations aimed at moving this research area forward.