Reasons young adults visit (and do not visit) impaired grandparents

This study explored the value undergraduate students ( N = 138) attach to relationships with impaired grandparents by examining some of the reasons they visit (and do not visit) grandparents who live with conditions limiting their cognitive, physical, or psychological well-being. As part of a larger study, participants completed two checklists to indicate their reasons for visiting and not visiting their affected grandparents. Reward-based reasons were endorsed more frequently as motives for visiting than were reasons based on external constraints, family difficulties, guilt, or wanting to take advantage of the time left with their grandparents. Barriers that restricted opportunities to visit were endorsed more frequently as explanations for participants' failure to visit than were problems in the relationship itself, guilt, or severity of impairment.