AUTHOR=Turner Shelbie G. , Lee Aryn , Pillemer Karl A. , Reid M. Carrington 

TITLE=Pain-attributed care task difficulty among dementia caregivers with chronic pain

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Pain Research

VOLUME=Volume 6 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pain-research/articles/10.3389/fpain.2025.1661457

DOI=10.3389/fpain.2025.1661457

ISSN=2673-561X

ABSTRACT=IntroductionChronic pain is highly prevalent among dementia family caregivers (henceforth “caregivers”). We used a nationwide sample of caregivers with chronic pain to identify the extent to which caregivers attribute pain to any difficulty they have with caregiving.MethodsCaregivers (N = 269) reported if they experienced difficulty performing ten individual care tasks and if ‘yes’, how much of the difficulty they attributed to pain (0 = not a reason for my difficulty, 10 = the biggest reason for my difficulty). We ran ANOVA models to determine between-group differences in pain-attributed difficulty with care tasks.ResultsWhen asked about the extent to which pain contributed to the difficulty helping care recipients with a given care task, caregivers’ average response was 6.81 for basic activities of daily living and 6.49 for instrumental activities of daily living. Compared to White caregivers, Black caregivers attributed less of their difficulty with basic activities of daily living to pain (estimate = –1.17, p = 0.04).DiscussionCaregiver pain is not only highly prevalent may also be consequential to caregiving outcomes.