Intergenerational caregiving: the role of attachment and mental representation of caregiving in filial anxiety of middle-aged children

Abstract

Adult children may experience filial anxiety when anticipatingthe need to care for their aging parents. To investigate theextent to which attachment and mental representation of car-egiving predict filial anxiety, a cross-sectional study was con-ducted among 304 middle-age adults with at least one livingparent aged 65 or more. Results suggest that the variance in filialanxiety is mainly accounted for by the mental representation ofcaregiving and then by attachment. These findings suggest thatmental representation of caregiving and attachment are impor-tant dimensions to consider when adult children feel unpre-pared and worried with the need to care for their aging parents.