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The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of quality of relationship between frail elderly and their caregivers on the mental health of caregivers in Japan. We analyzed the data which has obtained from 375 primary family caregivers who take care of the elderly in their home. The mental health was measured by two scales; The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale(CES-D) and a burnout sub-scale(emotional exhaustion). The quality of relationship was measured by three items composed by communication degree, emotional closeness, and cooperation of the elderly. The results of regression analyses controlling for the characteristics of elderly and caregivers such as elderly´s gender, age, physical disability, cognitive disability, caregiver´s gender, age, educational attainment, work status, duration of caregiving, and secondary caregiver´s availability, revealed that the quality of relationship was negatively related to the emotional exhaustion score and the level of depression. The relations were stronger on the emotional exhaustion rather than on the depression. Furthermore, the impacts of the relationship quality were differed by the relations of careers with the frail elderly as well as the type of mental health measures. The correlations between quality of relationship and the mental health were most strongly appeared among the daughter-in-law caregivers more than the other family caregivers. Our preliminary findings suggest that the possibility of the relationship quality as a predictor of mental health in the care-giving situation. Further effort is required to classify the concept of quality of relationship with other similar concept such as caregiver´s satisfaction, and so on.
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