Background
Family caregiving can be stressful and involves parents, and siblings. Siblings are the secondary caregivers, are involved in caregiving for their sibling with ‘intellectual disability’. Past literature has pointed that caregiving might impact the empathy of the sibling caregiver (Zaidman-Zait, Yechezkiely, & Regev, 2020). The phase of adolescence, is marked by high emotional sensitivity, along with experience of caregiving for their sibling with ID might impact their ‘emotional empathy.’
Hypotheses/Research Questions
There will be a significant difference in the emotional empathy of the sibling caregivers and comparison group.
Sample Characteristics and Sample Size
The study comprised of 180 participants; bifurcated into two groups, i.e., the sibling caregivers of individuals with ID (n=90) (sibling caregivers) and siblings of individuals without any disability (n=90) (comparison group). The data were collected using purpose sampling from the special schools, special educators for individuals with intellectual disability. The data were collected using Multi-Dimensional Emotional Empathy Scale’ (Caruso and Mayer, 1998).
Design
The aim was to draw a comparison on emotional empathy between the participants from the two groups. Further, the impact of gender on emotional empathy was also assessed between the two groups. Relationship between Other demographic factors like birth order, family type and age group were also considered. The results were analysed using like Two-way ANOVA and point biserial correlation.
Results
The results of the research revealed that ‘emotional empathy’ was found to have a significant difference between the two groups and was found to be low among the sibling caregivers in comparison to the comparison group participants
Scientific Contribution
The implications are to enhance the emotional empathy of the sibling caregivers and improve their resilience and skills related to caregiving. This would in turn help in the improvement of relationship of the sibling caregiver with the sibling with ‘intellectual disability’