Method: The Women’s Multiple Roles Study collected data from women who simultaneously occupied four roles: wife, mother, employee, and parent (or parent-in-law) caregiver. A total of 124 women provided data for all three waves (annually over a period of two years). Predictors included caregiving stress and rewards, stress and rewards in the three other roles, care recipient’s functional impairment and behavior problems, and characteristics of the caregiver (race, education, physical health, optimism).

Results: Growth models, using multilevel modeling, revealed significant variability among caregivers in initial levels of depression and life satisfaction and in their rate of change. Over time both adaptation (stable or decreased depressive symptoms; stable or increased life satisfaction) and wear-and-tear (increased depressive symptoms; decreased life satisfaction) occurred. Higher depressive symptoms and lower life satisfaction were predicted by characteristics of the caregiver (poorer physical health, lower optimism) and by higher stress and lower rewards in the roles other than parent care. Parent care stress and rewards were not significant predictors of depressive symptoms or life satisfaction once experiences in other roles were controlled. Parents’ functional impairment and behavior problems also were not significant predictors.

Implications for practice: Caregiver assessments need to evaluate stress and rewards from all life roles in order to target services to those most likely to experience higher depression and lower life satisfaction.