==== Front
Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1657
igaa057.1657
Abstracts
Session 3014 (Paper)
Health and Social Experiences of Family Caregivers
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
The Caregiver Identity in Context: The Consequences of Identity Threat From Siblings
Rurka Marissa 1 Suitor J Jill 2 Gilligan Megan 3 1 
Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, United States
2 
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, United States
3 
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”513 514
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
Although siblings represent central members of the networks of caregivers’ and their parents, there has been limited attention to how siblings affect one another’s well-being during caregiving. In this paper, we draw from theories of identity and stress to examine the impact that siblings have on caregivers’ psychological well-being. Specifically, we employ a mixed-methods approach to explore whether caregivers’ perceptions that their siblings are critical of the care they provide their mother are associated with higher depressive symptoms, as well as the mechanisms underlying this association. Using quantitative data collected from 406 caregivers nested within 230 families as part of the Within-Family Differences Study, we conduct mediation analyses to examine whether perceived sibling criticisms affect caregivers’ depressive symptoms (a) directly, and/or (b) indirectly through sibling tension. We then analyze qualitative data collected from the same caregivers to gain insight into the processes underlying statistical associations. Quantitative analyses revealed that there was no direct relationship between perceived sibling criticisms and depressive symptoms; there was, however, an indirect relationship such that perceived sibling criticisms were associated with greater sibling tension, which in turn was associated with higher depressive symptoms. These quantitative findings were corroborated by qualitative analyses, which demonstrated that, in an effort to maintain their identity as a “good caregiver” despite sibling criticisms, caregivers often employed strategies that may have fueled tension in their sibling relationships. These findings highlight the importance of considering how the sibling networks in which caregivers are embedded shape their psychological well-being.