Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Although adult-children are the largest caregiver population (~50%), research and interventions focus on spouses. The lack of knowledge hinders efforts to appropriately support this unique caregiver population; caregiving often disrupts adult-children’s lives at the critical stage of building families and careers, which can harm financial health and relational and career goals, exacerbating disparities. Accordingly, our research demonstrates that adult-child caregivers experience more emotional and social distress than spouses due to multiple role strains (e.g., employment, childcare). We also find that improving communication between caregiver and parent can help alleviate caregiving-related stress. Dr. Fenton is adapting a communication intervention for adult-child caregivers based on interviews with adult-child caregivers and their parents with advanced cancer. Students may take part in several ways in this project: (1) design stage (conducting focus groups with stakeholders for feedback on intervention design, analyzing feedback, incorporating feedback into design); (2) testing phase (helping to run the RCT by recruiting patients, collecting data, ensuring fidelity); and (3) assessing feasibility (analyzing qualitative and quantitative data about participants’ experiences and outcomes). All students will be included as an author on any paper published and will have the option to be first author on a paper that they develop and lead.