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Major neurocognitive disorder is often referred to as a “family disease” due to the challenges and chronic stressors faced by family caregivers. Despite the widespread effect of major neurocognitive disorder on a patient’s family, caregiving is rarely examined within a family context. Instead, the experience of primary caregivers is frequently researched while auxiliary family caregivers are ignored. This study addresses this oversight by utilizing dyadic analysis to examine perspectives of 52 collaborating caregivers (primary and secondary caregivers) within 26 family units. Differences and interdependence between collaborating caregivers were examined on variables of objective care demands (daily care needs and behavior symptoms), subjective appraisals (daily care bother and behavior bother) and psychosocial outcomes (caregiver burden and depressive symptomatology) based on the stress process model. Significant differences were not found between collaborating caregivers on objective care demands and subjective appraisals. In contrast, primary caregivers endorsed significantly greater depressive symptomatology and burden compared to their secondary caregiver counterparts. Primary caregivers’ bother with behavior symptoms was a significant predictor of their own depressive symptomatology, whereas secondary caregivers’ behavior bother predicted their own burden. Secondary caregivers’ subjective appraisals of behavior bother contributed to primary caregivers’ burden and depressive symptomatology. However, primary caregivers’ subjective appraisals influenced neither secondary caregivers’ level of burden nor depressive symptoms. Supplemental qualitative findings revealed several shared themes between primary and secondary caregivers, as well as themes unique to each group. This is the first study to make dyadic comparisons on primary and secondary caregivers across important variables associated with the caregiving experience (objective care demands, subjective appraisals, and psychosocial outcomes). As the number of individuals diagnosed with a major neurocognitive disorder increases in the coming years, an understanding of the similarities, differences, and interactions between collaborating caregivers is important for the development of effective caregiver interventions and services.

A great deal of research has been conducted on caregiving experiences for relatives with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, virtually no research exists on the factors associated with willingness to caregive before entering the caregiver role. Furthermore, little is known about caregiving during emerging adulthood despite the unique juxtaposition of gains in autonomy concurrent with declining degrees of dependency common in the developmental period. This study investigated whether emerging adults differ in AD caregiving beliefs based on relationship (parent vs. grandparent), as well as which factors best predict willingness to caregive. Caregiving beliefs were assessed through a survey given to emerging adult undergraduate students (n = 150). All caregiving influences with the exception of forecasted stress were significantly different across relationships. Willingness to caregive for parents was predicted by comfort in caregiving tasks while confidence, institutionalization, and felt obligation predicted willingness for grandparents. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.