Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
February 15, 2024
Summary:
Objectives:
This study investigates the psychological well-being of informal caregivers over time. It identifies the thresholds (or “tipping points”) of caring intensity at which caregiving is associated with lower psychological well-being, and how this varies by care location and caregiver–care recipient relationships. It also examines how caring location and relationship are linked to informal caregivers’ psychological well-being while controlling for caring intensity.
Methods:
Waves 1–18 (1991–2009) of the harmonized British Household Panel Survey and Waves 1–8 (2009–2017) of the U.K. Household Longitudinal Study were analyzed. Psychological well-being was measured using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12 score. Care intensity was measured by the weekly hours of care provided. Fixed-effects estimators were applied to the GHQ-12 score of caregivers across different care intensities, caring locations, and caring relationships.
Results:
All levels of informal care intensity are associated with lower psychological well-being among spousal caregivers. The thresholds to well-being are 5 hours per week when caring for a parent, and 50 hours per week when caring for a child (with a disability or long-term illness). Caring for “other relatives” or nonrelatives is not negatively associated with psychological well-being. The thresholds are 5 hours per week for both coresident and extraresident caregivers. Extraresident caregivers experience better psychological well-being compared to coresident caregivers, given relatively lower weekly care hours. Caring for primary kin (especially spouses) is linked to lower psychological well-being compared to other caregiving relationships, regardless of care intensity.
Discussion:
Policy and practice responses should pay particular attention to spousal caregivers’ well-being. Caregiving relationship has a stronger association with the caregiver’s well-being than care location.
Published in
Journals of Gerontology: Series B
Volume
Volume: 79
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbad166
ISSN
10795014
Subjects
Notes
Open Access
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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