Puerto Rican families caring for an adult with mental retardation: role of familism.

The role of familism (a cultural value including interdependence among nuclear and extended family members for support, loyalty, and solidarity) in caregiving was explored for Puerto Rican mothers with children with mental retardation living at home. Familism--defined here as direct caregiving provided by family members to the person with mental retardation, mothers' social support networks, and mothers' obligations to other family members--was hypothesized to account for variation in maternal well-being. Better maternal well-being was predicted by larger social support networks, greater satisfaction with social support, and more minor children living in the household. A troubling but not unexpected finding is that these mothers faced many socioeconomic challenges and were in poor health in addition to the challenges of parenting a child with mental retardation.