ABSTRACT
Cultural and ethnic issues in family caregiving create an often neglected context for focusing on the differential impact on caregiving. This cultural standard of filial piety still becomes a moral benchmark to judge caregiving attitudes and behaviors. The interaction of ethnicity and culture with the caregiving situation can be a central dynamic in the adaptation to the family caregiving response. The physical and social environment can include living arrangements of the patient and caregiver, income, formal and informal support services, family issues, cultural tradition, and the temporal context of caregiving. In the conceptual model of caregiving stress developed by L. I. Pearlin, J. T. Mullan and S. J. Semple, cultural and temporal issues in caregiving are considered within the domains of background and context, and, to a lesser extent, the mediators of stress. Caregiving role transitions will modify indicators of time and will emphasize the importance of shared beliefs and customs of caregiving within particular ethnic and cultural groups.
