Empathy While Caregiving

Common effects of caregiving include anxiety, depression, and a sense of burden. Jütten, Mark, & Sitskoorn (2019) addressed these topics in relation to empathy for caregivers of people with dementia. They defined two elements of empathy: cognitive and affective. The former encompasses perceiving and understanding the feelings, emotions, and experiences of someone else; the latter describes sharing, identifying with, and feeling the emotions and feelings of that other person. Since these elements of empathy stem from different parts of the brain, the researchers explored the relationship between the elements and the common effects of caregiving. After conducting a study involving questionnaires about those topics and elements given to caregivers and non-caregivers, they found that, in comparison to non-caregivers, caregivers had normal levels of empathy, which was linked to increased depression. However, higher cognitive empathy was linked to the lowest expression of depression symptoms. Higher affective empathy was correlated with higher anxiety levels, meaning that lower affective empathy was related with lower anxiety symptoms. Based on these findings, the researchers suggested pursuing strategies that aim to promote more cognitive empathy (to better control depression) and less affective empathy (to better control anxiety).

Access this article to read more: Empathy in informal dementia caregivers and its relationship with depression, anxiety, and burden.