Rewards, costs, and coping of African American caregivers

African American female caregivers who provided care to an elderly demented or confused relative (n = 83) were interviewed to explore the relationships between the caregiver's confrontive, emotive, and palliative coping and household income, relationship to the elder, perceived caregiving demands, quality of social support, rewards, costs, and care recipient's geographic area of residence. These seven variables accounted for significant variance in emotive coping, though not in confrontive and palliative coping. The caregiver's primary appraisal of perceived costs was key in the explanation of emotive coping; perceived rewards were important in accounting for palliative coping, and social support quality was salient in the explanation of confrontive coping. Perceived caregiving demands, caregiver household income, caregiver-care recipient relationship, and care recipient geographic area of residence were not significantly related to the three types of coping.