Problem Solving Skills Predict Quality of Llife and Psychological Morbidity in ALS Caregivers

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) often is associated with a particularly intensive caregiving experience, and the well-being of caregivers impacts that of patients. Thus, identification of factors leading to distress in caregivers may provide avenues for intervention that will help both the caregiver and the patient. We prospectively examined caregivers' social problem solving skills, the quality of the patient-caregiver relationship, caregivers' spirituality and religiousness, and the ways in which these impact caregivers' quality of life (QoL) and psychological morbidity in 75 caregivers of ALS patients. Data were analyzed through correlational and hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Social problem solving and spirituality were the best predictors of caregivers' QoL, accounting for 15.6% and 7.8% of the variance in QoL, respectively (F (2, 69) = 11.83, p