Combining informal care and paid work: The use of work arrangements by working adult-child caregivers in the Netherlands

Oldenkamp, Marloes; Bültmann, Ute; Wittek, Rafael; Stolk, Ronald P.; Hagedoorn, Mariët; Smidt, Nynke

doi:10.1111/hsc.12485

Cited by 24 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Moreover, and although research has found contradictory findings [15], a large percentage of studies found that caring for a dependent person is related to a series of burdens that often takes them to their physical, psychological and emotional limits [15–17], impacting the whole family system [15]. The responsibilities imposed by the caregiving situation may interrupt social life, activities or even work, which may be challenging [18]. For instance, some studies report that caregiving is usually associated with a deterioration in the quality of life [5, 6, 19, 20], higher levels of depression symptoms [5, 19, 21, 22], greater financial burden [19, 23, 24] and greater physical impairment [19, 25] especially when compared to non-carers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Needs and skills of informal caregivers to care for a dependent person: a cross-sectional study

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background The world is facing many socio-demographic changes, such as an increased average life expectancy and the presence of chronic and non-communicable diseases, which in turn, leads to an enhanced dependency on others. Consequently, the demand for informal caregivers has significantly increased during the past few years. Caring for a dependent person is linked to a series of burdens that often leads to physical, psychological and emotional difficulties. Taking into consideration the difficulties faced by informal caregivers, knowing in which areas of functioning they need more guidance may help to relieve their burden. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to better understand the needs and competencies of the informal caregiver when caring for a dependent person in the different self-care domains. Methods This cross-sectional study used a questionnaire administered on a single occasion by face-to-face interview. Descriptive and inferential statistics alongside non-parametric statistical techniques such as the Mann-Whitney test and Spearman’s correlation were used. Results The average age of the 143 informal caregivers is 58 years old, with the youngest in our sample being 21 years of age. Most of them are female, and 50% of them are children taking care of one of their parents. Most of the dependent people are completely dependent in the areas of comfort and hygiene (53.8%) and medication management (55.9%). The female informal caregivers see themselves as having more competencies in sanitary hygiene than the male ones, with no significant differences in their competencies’ perception in the other areas of self-care. Older caregivers see themselves as less competent in certain areas of self-care such as feeding, mobility, transfers, medication and symptoms management and communication. Most of the information given to the informal caregiver is about the disease (82.3%) and the medication management (80.4%). There are still a lot of areas of self-care, where no information, or almost none, is given to the informal caregivers. Conclusions Before home discharge of a dependent person, it is important to acknowledge the needs and competencies of the informal caregiver, to capacitate them in looking after their relatives, to help decrease their burden and consequently, decrease the number of hospital readmissions.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Needs and skills of informal caregivers to care for a dependent person: a cross-sectional study

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The care activities provided by informal caregivers entail all kinds of activities related to the disease that the care recipient cannot perform alone due to the lack of personal autonomy because of the illness. This definition is widely used in the literature [25][26][27][28][29]. We used two questions to identify informal care: the first question asked whether the patients needed assistance due to the illness (does the patient need a carer to help with his/her daily activities (toilet, washing, dressing, helping him/her move, drug treatments, etc.)…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Burden of Spinal Muscular Atrophy on Informal Caregivers

Aranda-Reneo

Peña-Longobardo

Oliva‐Moreno

et al. 2020

IJERPH

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is one of the most common severe hereditary diseases of infancy and early childhood. The progression of this illness causes a high degree of disability; hence, a significant burden is experienced by individuals with this disease and their families. We analyzed the time taken to care for patients suffering from SMA in European countries and the burden on their informal caregivers. We designed a cross-sectional study recording data from France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. The primary caregivers completed a self-administered questionnaire that included questions about the time of care, The Zarit Burden Interview, type of SMA and socio-demographic characteristics. Multivariate analyses were used to study the associations between the type of SMA, time of care and burden supported by informal caregivers. The caregivers provided 10.0 h (SD = 6.7) per day of care (the principal caregivers provided 6.9 h, SD = 4.6). The informal caregivers of patients with type I SMA had a 36.3 point higher likelihood (p < 0.05) of providing more than 10 h of care per day in comparison with caregivers of patients with type III SMA. The severity of the disease was associated with more time of care and a higher burden on the caregivers.

show abstract

“…Only in one country -the United Kingdom -do employers continue to contribute to the occupational pension on behalf on an employee during periods of care. In Sweden, while this is not mandatory, employers are encouraged to do so and most comply (OECD, 2011 [73]).…”

Section: Career Loss Compensation Provides a Forward-looking Vision Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

Executive summary

2020

OECD Health Policy Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Elderly people and their care workers have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Older adults and those with multiple chronic conditions or health risk factors are at a significantly higher risk of severe complications from the disease than other groups, and indeed most of the deaths have been among the elderly. Across the OECD, more than one in six people are older than 65, with 60% of them living with multiple chronic conditions. In addition to the added health risks, certain elderly people significantly struggle to access social support, or to cope with the mental strains provoked by the COVID-19 crisis. Many OECD countries have taken measures to contain the spread of the infection and mitigate its impact on vulnerable groups. Yet the health crisis is highlighting and exacerbating pre-existing structural problems in the long-term care (LTC) sector. In many OECD countries, recruiting enough workers in LTC remains a challenge and care workers experience difficult working conditions. Skills mismatch, poor integration with the rest of health care and inadequate or poorly enforced safety standards in LTC lie at the root of preventable hospital admissions even in normal times. During a pandemic, the structural shortcomings in the LTC sector are becoming even more visible: care workers are under huge strain in delivering their services in often very difficult conditions and limited support. This in turn is affecting the management of the infection and exposing elderly people to further risks. This report is the outcome of a collective effort with contributions from a team of policy analysts from the OECD Health Division of the Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS). Ana Llena-Nozal led the team and coordinated the project and the publication. The overview Chapter 1 was written by Ana Llena-Nozal, drawing on the analyses carried out in other chapters, who benefited from in-depth comments by Francesca Colombo. Principal authors of the chapters were Ana Llena-Nozal: Chapters 4 and 5; Liliane Moreira (OECD at the time of writing): Chapters 5 and 6; Thomas Rapp (OECD at the time of writing): Chapters 2, 3 and 4; Eileen Rocard: Chapters 2 and 4. Sarah Nedjar-Calvet (OECD at the time of writing) provided research assistance to Chapter 6.

show abstract

Combining informal care and paid work: The use of work arrangements by working adult-child caregivers in the Netherlands

Cited by 24 publications

References 37 publications

Needs and skills of informal caregivers to care for a dependent person: a cross-sectional study

Needs and skills of informal caregivers to care for a dependent person: a cross-sectional study

The Burden of Spinal Muscular Atrophy on Informal Caregivers

Executive summary

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About