| Abstract |
Few of the studies describing caregiver stress and coping have focused on the effects of care-giving
processes among informal caregivers while managing depressed care recipients. The major purpose of
this talk is to discuss the dynamics of the informal care support and receipt interactions
among caregivers and care recipients using a multi-agent modelling approach. Important concepts in
coping skills, strong ties support networks and stress buffering studies were used as a basis
for the model design and verification. Simulation experiments for several cases pointed out that
the model is able to reproduce interaction among strong tie network members during stress.
In addition, by a mathematical analysis, the possible equillibria of the model have been determined,
and, the model has been verified against expected overall properties using an automated verification tool. |