Carol S. Aneshensel - Böcker

Given medical advances and greater understanding of healthful living habits, people are living longer lives. Proportionally speaking, a greater percentage of the population is elderly. Despite medical advances, there is still no cure for dementia, and as elderly individuals succumb to Alzheimer's Disease or related dementia, more and more people are having to care their elderly parents and /or siblings. Profiles in Caregiving is practical source of information for anyone who teaches caregiving, acts as a caregiver, or studies caregiving.This book discusses recent research on stress factors associated with caregiving, and what factors impact on successful versus non-successful adaptation to the care-giving role. This is an expanding field in gerontology, and is also of interest to personality and social psychologists studying stress and interpersonal relations. Although there are many books on the cause and treatment of dementia, there has been a book that provides a research investigation into the factors associated with effective caregiving to dementia patients.

This book presents the elaboration model for the multivariate analysis of observational quantitative data. This model entails the systematic introduction of "third variables" to the analysis of a focal relationship between one independent and one dependent variable to ascertain whether an inference of causality is justified. Two complementary strategies are used: an exclusionary strategy that rules out alternative explanations such as spuriousness and redundancy with competing theories, and an inclusive strategy that connects the focal relationship to a network of other relationships, including the hypothesized causal mechanisms linking the focal independent variable to the focal dependent variable. The primary emphasis is on the translation of theory into a logical analytic strategy and the interpretation of results. The elaboration model is applied with case studies drawn from newly published research that serve as prototypes for aligning theory and the data analytic plan used to test it; these studies are drawn from a wide range of substantive topics in the social sciences, such as emotion management in the workplace, subjective age identification during the transition to adulthood, and the relationship between religious and paranormal beliefs. The second application of the elaboration model is in the form of original data analysis presented in two Analysis Journals that are integrated throughout the text and implement the full elaboration model. Using real data, not contrived examples, the text provides a step-by-step guide through the process of integrating theory with data analysis in order to arrive at meaningful answers to research questions.

In 1981, Leonard Pearlin and his colleagues published an article that would ra- cally shift the sociological study of mental health from an emphasis on psychiatric disorder to a focus on social structure and its consequences for stress and psyc- logical distress. Pearlin et al. (1981) proposed a deceptively simple conceptual model that has now influenced sociological inquiry for almost three decades. With his characteristic penchant for reconsidering and elaborating his own ideas, Pearlin has revisited the stress process model periodically over the years (Pearlin 1989, 1999; Pearlin et al. 2005; Pearlin and Skaff 1996). One of the consequences of this continued theoretical elaboration of the stress process has been the development of a sociological model of stress that embraces the complexity of social life. Another consequence is that the stress process has continued to stimulate a host of empirical investigations in the sociology of mental health. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to suggest that the stress process paradigm has been primarily responsible for the growth and sustenance of sociological research on stress and mental health. Pearlin et al. (1981) described the core elements of the stress process in a brief paragraph: The process of social stress can be seen as combining three major conceptual domains: the sources of stress, the mediators of stress, and the manifestations of stress. Each of these extended domains subsumes a variety of subparts that have been intensively studied in recent years.

In 1981, Leonard Pearlin and his colleagues published an article that would ra- cally shift the sociological study of mental health from an emphasis on psychiatric disorder to a focus on social structure and its consequences for stress and psyc- logical distress. Pearlin et al. (1981) proposed a deceptively simple conceptual model that has now influenced sociological inquiry for almost three decades. With his characteristic penchant for reconsidering and elaborating his own ideas, Pearlin has revisited the stress process model periodically over the years (Pearlin 1989, 1999; Pearlin et al. 2005; Pearlin and Skaff 1996). One of the consequences of this continued theoretical elaboration of the stress process has been the development of a sociological model of stress that embraces the complexity of social life. Another consequence is that the stress process has continued to stimulate a host of empirical investigations in the sociology of mental health. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to suggest that the stress process paradigm has been primarily responsible for the growth and sustenance of sociological research on stress and mental health. Pearlin et al. (1981) described the core elements of the stress process in a brief paragraph: The process of social stress can be seen as combining three major conceptual domains: the sources of stress, the mediators of stress, and the manifestations of stress. Each of these extended domains subsumes a variety of subparts that have been intensively studied in recent years.

Now in this updated second edition, the comprehensive handbook of mental health sociology features theory-driven reviews of recent research with an inclusive approach to investigating the myriad ways in which society shapes the mental health of its members.