Geographic distance and social isolation among family care-givers providing care to older adults in Canada

Abstract

Family care-giving is associated with social isolation, which can lead to adverse health and wellbeing outcomes among family care-givers. The role of geographic distance in care-giver social isolation (CSI) is unclear and has received mixed research findings. Framed by the Ecological Model of Caregiver Isolation, this study examined the relationship between geographic distance and CSI, including the interaction between geographic distance and care-giving intensity for CSI. Linear regression and analysis of covariance were used to test these hypotheses using a sub-set of family care-givers from the 2012 Canadian General Social Survey (N = 2,881). Care-givers living a short distance from receivers reported lower levels of social isolation than co-resident, moderate-distance and long-distance care-givers. Being involved in higher-intensity care-giving as the primary care-giver, undertaking more care-giving tasks and providing care more frequently resulted in higher CSI scores. Long- and moderate-distance care-givers reported greater CSI than co-resident and short-distance care-givers only when providing higher-intensity care-giving. Employing a granulated measure of geographic distance positioned within an ecological framework facilitates an understanding of the nuanced association between geographic proximity and CSI. Furthermore, the identified interaction effects between geographic distance and care-giving intensity on CSI further explicate the complexity of care-giving experiences. The findings are relevant for programmes supporting care-givers in different contexts, especially distance care-givers.

Examination of the Healthy Caregiver Effect among Older Adults: Findings from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

“…The choice of indicators of caregiving intensity (i.e., hours, tasks, or frequency) varies across studies, and this study choose caregiving hours for two reasons: (1) the amount of caregiving hours is universally comparable to other studies, but measurements of caregiving tasks and frequency have a greater variation among different studies and (2) the caregiving hours can better reflect the actual caregiving engagement than the caregiving tasks and frequency of care provision. For instance, co-resident caregivers tend to report higher caregiving hours than distance caregivers, although they may perform similar number of caregiving tasks [43]. Also, in the CLSA survey, participants were first asked about the caregiving tasks they performed and then asked to estimate the caregiving hours for those tasks, which prevents the mixing of caregiving hours with other times spent with the care receivers.…”