"providing care for an impaired older adult has been described as a stressful endeavour involving a pleathora of responsibilities that can place the caregiver at risk for negative psychological and physical health outcomes. the goal of this study was to investigate several issues relating to the caregiving stress process: (1) whether caregivers were at greater risk for adverse health outcomes compared to non-caregivers (2) whether the nature of the care-recipient's illness had a negative influence on caregiver health, (3) whether health behaviours mediated the association between caregiving stressors and physical health, (4) whether social support and the quality of the pre-illness relationship had stress-buffering influences on physical health, and (5) whether relinquishing the caregiving role had an effect on caregiver health. the data analyzed in this dissertation were derived from three separate studies of older adults and their caregivers. caregivers were re-contacted to participate in a follow-up even if the care-recipient had died or was institutionalized. a control group of married older adults who were not actively serving as caregivers to their spouses was included in one of the studies. spouse caregivers of individuals with cognitive impairments (i.e., dementia), those providing care to cognitively-intact individuals (i.e., non-dementia), as well as a control group of non-caregivers were selected for analyses."--from abstract