Fig. 3

Typology of caregiving spouses by caregiver burden and the coping dimension. The vertical axis shows the extent of experienced burden and stress. A curved arrow-symbol in the graphic growing bigger upwards indicates the level of burden too. In the horizontal axis the respective coping dimensions are plotted. The big green dot represents the prototypical case of coping-type ‘Diverting’, the big yellow dot the prototypical case of coping-type ‘Seeking attention and care’ and the big red dot the prototypical case of coping-type ‘Negative emotional’. One always has to keep in mind also in the prototypes of our participants parts of the other two coping dimensions might also be present, but to a much lesser extent. The smaller dots symbolize mixed forms of coping strategies, whereby the colour indicates the predominant coping dimension