Most long-term care for older adults in the United States is provided by informal caregivers (Ahmad, 2012), the majority of whom experience an intense range of emotions from satisfaction to loneliness. Counselors must consider this emerging population of caretakers and learn methods to encourage clinical services to address their need for support. This article delineates experiences and challenges of informal caregivers and provides suggestions for effective clinical services for caregiver populations.
The authors conducted a study of 422 women, ages 31 to 77 years, to explore the relationships among friendship networks, subjective age, and life satisfaction. Friendship network size was related to lower subjective age but not to chronological age. More frequent visits with friends were related to lower subjective age and to higher life satisfaction. Satisfaction with the number of friends and a larger number of friends were related to higher levels of life satisfaction. Subjective age, group belonging, and being someone's best friend were significant predictors of life satisfaction.
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