Psychological well-being of Chinese Immigrant adult-child caregivers: how do filial expectation, self-rated filial performance, and filial discrepancy matter?

• Published in: Aging & mental health 2020-03, Vol.24 (3), p.489-496
• Main Authors: Liu, Jinyu, Wu, Bei, Dong, Xinqi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: adult children; Adults; Asian cultural groups; Caregiver burden; Caregivers; Caregiving; Children; Chinese; Cultural change; Discrepancies; Filial piety; Filial responsibility; Financial support; Geriatric psychiatry; Happiness; Immigrants; Mental depression; Obedience; Older children; Older people; Population growth; Population studies; Psychological distress; Psychological factors; Psychological well being; Regression analysis; Self evaluation; Well being
• ISSN: 1360-7863; 1364-6915
• DOI: 10.1080/13607863.2018.1544210

Background: Given the importance of ethnic culture in family caregiving and recent Chinese immigrant population growth, this study explored effects of multiple filial piety traits-filial expectation, self-rated filial performance, and filial discrepancy-on psychological well-being of Chinese immigrants who care for older parents (adult-child caregivers) in the United States. Methods: This study used cross-sectional data from 393 Chinese immigrant adult-child caregivers in the Greater Chicago area from the 2012-2014 Piety study. Multivariate negative binomial and linear regression analyses tested effects of filial expectation, self-rated filial performance, overall filial discrepancy, and discrepancies in six filial domains (respect, bringing happiness, care, greeting, obedience, and financial support) on psychological well-being indicators: depressive symptoms and stress. Results: Adult-child caregivers reported high filial expectation and self-rated performance, and expectation was higher than performance. High filial expectation and self-rated performance were significantly associated with better psychological well-being; Overall filial discrepancy and two emotional-support domain discrepancies (respect, greeting) were associated with poor psychological well-being. Conclusions: Findings suggest that filial expectation, self-rated filial performance, and filial discrepancy are important in shaping Chinese adult-child caregivers' psychological well-being. Researchers and practitioners should incorporate these aspects of filial piety in future research and intervention development for this population.