Experiencing an Intimate Partner’s Breast Cancer: Attachment, Caregiving, and Burden in Men

Objective: This study examined interrelationships among adult attachment orientations, caregiving, and caregiver burden in men of female partners with breast cancer, and tested whether caregiving patterns mediated associations between men’s attachment orientations and their self-reported caregiver burden. Method: The participants were 124 male partners of women with breast cancer. These participants completed assessments related to attachment, caregiving, and caregiver burden. Path models examined the associations between constructs and tested mediational effects. Results: Findings demonstrated significant associations between men’s adult attachment orientations and their experience of caregiver burden. In addition, the maintenance of proximity in caregiving completely mediated the respective associations of attachment security and attachment avoidance to caregiver health problems, on one hand, and to the caregiver’s self-esteem (e.g., another indicator for caregiver burden), on the other. Moreover, we fo...