Stress, Coping, and Physical Health in Caregiving.

Informal caregivers experience a great deal of stress due to care-related duties and responsibilities. Caregiving stress has the ability to impact caregivers' physical health, but has been largely understudied in caregivers of children with a chronic illness. In this study, we examine the associations of stress to both caregiver self-rated health and biomarkers of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and immune systems (arginine vasopressin, c-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor alpha). We also examine whether coping style (proactive, avoidant, support coping) buffers the links of stress to health across two different stressor contexts: caregiving for a child with a rare or undiagnosed disease (