ArticleAging & mental health2025
'I just feel so unloved': using grounded theory to explore adult children's experiences of unresponsiveness from their parents living with dementia.
Article in Aging & mental health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesResponsiveness is the cornerstone of relationship satisfaction, and parents with dementia may become increasingly unresponsive due to cognitive impairment. During a child's development, their parent's responsiveness-ability to perceive and tend to their core concerns, significantly impacts the child's attachment and self-image. Given increasing dementia prevalence and its impact on caregivers' mental health, understanding unresponsiveness may enhance caregiver support.
methodThis grounded theory study aimed to develop a conceptual model of how unresponsiveness from parents with dementia manifests from the perspective of their adult child caregivers. Twelve caregivers of parents with dementia participated in semi-structured video interviews.
resultsParticipants experienced intense emotional pain, traumatizing relational shifts, and invalidation. Reactions to unresponsiveness included positive coping strategies (e.g. self-care), empathy for parents, and defense strategies (e.g. withdrawal due to perceiving unresponsiveness as threatening). Unresponsiveness was often interpreted as a reflection of participant self-worth, damaging their self-image.
conclusionA conceptual model illustrates the dynamic interplay of experiences, reactions, and meanings given to unresponsiveness. Novel findings suggest perceptions of unresponsiveness from parents with dementia may lead to disorganized attachment patterns and compromised self-images in adult child caregivers. The conceptual model may enhance caregiver support by helping clinicians normalize and address these experiences.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.