Well-Being of Family Caregivers of Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury: The Moderating Effects of Online Versus In-Person Social Support

Objective: Family members of individuals with spinal cord injury often take on caregiving responsibilities, which can lead to caregiver burden. One factor that can mitigate the adverse effects of caregiving, such as caregiver burden, is receiving social support. Caregivers can obtain support from people they meet in person (in-person support) and on social media platforms (online support). The current cross-sectional correlational design study investigated the moderating effect of in-person and online support on the association between relationship quality, caregiver competence, caregiver distress, and caregiver burden (dependent variables). Methods: Family caregivers of an individual with spinal cord injury ( n = 115) completed an online survey assessing relationship quality, competence, distress, burden, and in-person and online supports. Results: Moderation analyses showed that the negative associations between relationship quality and physical burden (B = −0.58; p = 0.019) and caregiver competence and physical burden (B = −0.73; p = 0.013) were more pronounced at higher levels of online social support. Furthermore, the magnitude of the negative associations between relationship quality and emotional burden (B = −0.52; p < 0.001) and caregiver competence and emotional burden (B = −0.34, p = 0.012) were more pronounced at higher levels of in-person social support. Moderation analyses also revealed that the positive association between distress and social burden (B = 0.47; p = 0.029) and emotional burden (B = 0.26; p = 0.045) were stronger when caregivers reported higher levels of online support. Conclusions: In-person and online support can buffer some aspects of caregiver burden on caregiver well-being. While online support is usually considered beneficial, greater online engagement may contribute to higher levels of burden when the distress is high. It is possible, however, that caregivers who are more distressed engage more with online media to receive support.