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Category: Project

Description: Young people who have a family member or close friend with an illness or disability often assume responsibility for their care. They have been referred to as young carers. Previous research indicates that the early responsibilities and tasks can relate to positive as well as negative experiences for these young people. Stress resulting from caregiving as well as coping strategies and resources seem to play a crucial role not only for adult carers but also for young carers’ well-being. Particularly, there is some evidence that benefit-finding, an individual’s ability to find positive aspects in a stressful or difficult situation, has a positive impact on the person’s well-being now and in the future. This study extends the quantitative research base about adolescent young carers and aims to find out more about the factors that enable adolescent young carers to cope with difficulties and promote their well-being. Specifically, the role of benefit-finding for well-being will be explored in this thesis. To examine this topic, a survey in a school and vocational training sample adolescents aged 15 to 21 years will be conducted. The collected data will enable comparisons of well-being outcomes between the group of adolescent young carers’ and adolescents without caregiving responsibilities. Furthermore, it allows to study relationships between well-being and other variables within the target group. Structural equation modelling will be applied to test a model of direct effects and indirect stress buffering effects of benefit-finding on well-being. The research will provide essential insights about the processes leading to well-being within a group of individuals under special circumstances as well as for the development of appropriate support for this specific target group. However, the findings can be insightful for human development and well-being in general.