Caregiving Stress and Parental Depression: The Moderating Effect of Social Capital in Parents of Adults with Developmental Disabilities

This study aimed to analyze the impact of caregiving stress on depressionamong parents of adult children with developmental disabilities and to statisticallyverify the moderating role of social capital in this relationship. To achieve this, aself-report survey was conducted on 300 parents caring for adult children withdevelopmental disabilities, who were conveniently sampled with the cooperation ofdisability welfare centers and related organizations in Jeollabuk-do SpecialSelf-Governing Province. A total of 230 questionnaires were collected, and 225responses, excluding insincere ones, were used for the final analysis. Data analysiswas performed using SPSS 27.0 and PROCESS Macro (ver. 4.2) Model 1 to test themoderating effects. The analysis results are as follows: First, as caregiving stressincreased, depression significantly increased. Second, among the sub-factors ofsocial capital, higher trust was associated with lower depression. Third, a higherlevel of social network was significantly associated with lower depression. Fourth,only trust, among the sub-factors of social capital, was found to buffer (moderate)the relationship between caregiving stress and depression. Based on these findings,practical and policy suggestions were provided for developing caregiving stresscoping strategies to prevent parental depression and for promoting the formationand utilization of community-based social capital (especially trust).