Poster (Knowledge Generation) ID 1969461

Abstract

Individuals with SCI often receive care from their family members. Caregiving responsibilities lead to caregiver burden. Receiving social support may mitigate the negative impacts of caregiving. Caregivers can obtain support from people they meet in-person, such as family members and people with whom they interact through social platforms. Our objective was to investigate the moderating effect of in-person and online social supports on the association between relationship quality, caregiver competence, caregiver distress and caregiver burden. 115 caregivers who resided in Canada or the United States, understood and spoke English, and self-identified as primary family caregivers of an individual with SCI were sampled. Participants completed measures assessing relationship quality, competence, distress, burden, and in-person and online social support. Three separate moderation analyses for each outcome variable (i.e. relationship quality, competence, and distress), were conducted. In analyses, burden was the predictor, and online and in-person support were moderators. Moderation analyses showed that online support moderates the link between caregiver burden and distress. Slope analyses revealed that the positive relationship between burden and distress was weaker when caregivers reported lower levels of online support (p=0.005); this relationship was more robust when caregivers reported higher levels of online support (p <.001). Other moderation analyses were not statistically significant. Online support increases distress in family caregivers. It is likely that comparing their life with other caregivers or being exposed to other caregivers’ grief negatively affects caregivers. More research is needed to understand how online support impacts caregivers negatively.