Elder mother's and caregiving daughter's perceptions when making decisions as a dyad: Agreement or disagreement

Abstract

Perceptions are an important component of the decision-making process and interactions between adult children and the older parent. The purposes of this correlational, cross-sectional study were (a) to test the psychometric properties of the Categories of Decision Making Scale; and (b) to describe the perceptions of the mother/daughter dyad and the match of perceptions with a specified theoretical perspective. The major variables in the model included general and specific expectations, dyadic intimacy, partner's decision strategies, and categories of decision-making. The convenience sample consisted of 12 dyads, older mothers and caregiving daughters, in the community who received questionnaires by mail. A model of Perceptual Congruence of the Mother/Daughter of the Dyad was developed to examine the factors "WE" (agreement of the dyad members) and "I" (disagreement of the dyad members). Two methods of analysis were used to analyze the data, Multitrait-Multimethod (MTMM) and Factor Analytic Structural Equation Modeling (FASEM). Key findings indicated that the Categories of Decision Making scale demonstrated sufficient validity and reliability for describing the decision making of daughters and mothers for this small sample. The MTMM analysis demonstrated congruence, indicating agreement on the "WE" factor with dyadic intimacy, mothers' involvement in decision making, and confidence in mothers' decision making abilities. The FASEM models demonstrated "WE" agreement on the variables of dyadic intimacy and positive decision strategies. Comparison of both methods of analysis, MTMM and FASEM indicated mothers and daughters agreed only on dyadic intimacy. In this study, daughters perceived the mothers used more negative decision making strategies than the mothers perceived the daughters to use while making decisions. The daughters believed negative decision making strategies were caused by higher specific parental expectations and resulted in diminished intimacy between mother and daughter. In summary, there was agreement within the dyad on dyadic intimacy, but congruence was not found on expectations, decision strategies, or categories of decision-making. The findings suggest that daughter/mother dyadic decision-making is very complex with both partners perceiving the interaction differently. These differences may cause difficulties with the decision making process and poor outcomes for the dyadic members.