(PS8-98) The Role of Avoidance Coping in Young Adult Caregivers’ Mental Health: Could Head in the Sand Be Okay?

Background: As emphasis on home-based care continues to grow, it is important to understand factors that impact informal caregivers’ quality of life (QOL). Despite the rise of caregiving responsibilities among all demographics, literature on young adult caregivers is extremely limited. The purpose of this study was to 1) examine the difference in depression, anxiety, and QOL among young adult caregivers and non-caregivers and 2) explore how psychological inflexibility, avoidant coping, and approach coping moderate these associations. It was hypothesized that 1) caregivers would report poorer mental health (MH) than non-caregivers and 2) the association of psychological inflexibility and coping with MH would be stronger among caregivers than non-caregivers.

Methods: Undergraduate students between the ages 18 and 29 (M = 20.1, SD = 2.01) completed a one-time online questionnaire measuring depression and anxiety (PROMIS-57 v2.1), QOL (PROMIS Global Health 10), psychological inflexibility (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II, AAQ-II), and coping skills (Brief-COPE) and indicated if they were the primary caregiver of someone with a chronic illness. For comparability, a one-to-one nearest-neighbor propensity score matching with a caliper of 0.1 was performed in the following seven sociodemographic characteristics using R MatchIt package: age, sex, race, marital status, financial status, presence of physical illness, and psychological illness. The final sample included 30 matched pairs of young adult caregivers and non-caregivers.

Results: ANCOVA revealed no statistically significant differences in depression, anxiety, and QOL between young adult caregivers and non-caregivers (η² < .02). However, analyses with avoidant coping as a moderator demonstrated significant main effects, such that being a caregiver (p’s < .058) and use of avoidance coping (p’s < .001) was associated with greater depression, anxiety, and MH-related QOL, and significant caregiving x avoidance coping interaction effects on depression, anxiety, and MH-related QOL (p’s < .05). Examination of conditional effects revealed that avoidant coping was positively associated with depression and anxiety among non-caregivers (p’s < .001) but not caregivers (p’s > .06). Similarly, avoidant coping was more strongly associated with MH-related QOL for non-caregivers (b= -.523, p = .018) compared to caregivers (b= -.507, p = .043). Psychological inflexibility and approach coping did not significantly moderate any of the associations.

Conclusion: Contrary to hypotheses, young adult caregivers did not experience significantly different levels of depression, anxiety, and QOL from their peers without caregiving responsibilities. Moderation findings were also in contrast to hypotheses and suggest that assuming the role of caregiver buffered the impact of avoidant coping on depression, anxiety, and QOL among young adults. The finding that avoidant coping was unrelated to mental health among caregivers contrasts with previous studies, suggesting that young adults may process caregiving responsibilities differently than their older counterparts. Further studies are needed for a better understanding of the young adult caregiver experience.