(PS8-B48) Family Empowerment and Caregiver Affiliate Stigma in Families with Children with Disabilities

Children with disabilities require a higher level of care and support than their typically-developing peers. These additional needs make it more difficult for families to care for their children, and greater caregiving responsibilities can lead to higher levels of stress, healthcare costs, and psychopathology. Family members of individuals with disabilities may experience affiliate stigma, which is the internalization of public stigma by people associated with stigmatized groups. Individuals experiencing affiliate stigma can have lower self-esteem and self-efficacy, in addition to psychopathologies such as anxiety and depression. In contrast, empowerment is the process of having control and power in one’s environment. Families with higher levels of empowerment tend to have better outcomes including higher utilization of and greater benefit from services, greater acceptance, and better life quality.

Prior research has examined empowerment and stigma separately; however, no known studies have investigated both in the same sample. The current study addressed this gap by investigating the relation between family social support, family empowerment, caregiver affiliate stigma, caregiver criticism, caregiver emotional overinvolvement (EOI), and caregiver distress. Understanding factors related to affiliate stigma and family empowerment will help to identify important points of interventions when working with families who have children with disabilities.

Participants were 63 caregivers (95.2% female, 4.8% male, 0% trans and gender nonconforming [TGNC]) of children with disabilities who completed a Qualtrics survey. At study participation, caregivers were between the ages of 31-64 (M = 47.05, SD = 7.28), and their child was between the ages of 6-21 (M = 14.31, SD = 4.36; 42.9% female, 57.1% male, 0% TGNC). Caregivers completed measures assessing demographics and the variables of interest.

Income was a significant covariate with some variables of interest. Partial correlation analyses indicated family empowerment was significantly, negatively related to criticism (rp = -.34), meaning that lower levels of family empowerment were associated with more criticism. In addition, there was a trending, negative partial correlation with caregiver distress (rp = -.22) and EOI (rp = -.25). Family empowerment and caregiver affiliate stigma were also significantly, negatively correlated (r = -.36). Further, affiliate stigma was significantly, negatively related to social support (rp = -.58), whereas the construct was significantly, positively related to criticism (rp = .61), distress (rp = .41), and EOI (r = -.70). This indicated that higher levels of stigma were associated with less social support and more distress, criticism, and EOI.

The results indicate important areas to assess when working with families who have a child with disabilities. Because affiliate stigma is associated with negative outcomes and family empowerment is associated with positive outcomes, developing understanding of these constructs will lead to improved knowledge of family functioning and wellness. Specifically, lowering caregiver distress, criticism, and EOI and increasing family social support may be important areas of intervention.