Psychosocial factors of caregiver burden in child caregivers: results from the new national study of caregiving

Abstract

BackgroundOver 50 million informal caregivers in the United States provide care to an aging adult, saving the economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually from costly hospitalization or institutionalization. Despite the benefits associated with caregiving, caregiver stress can lead to negative physical and mental health consequences, or “caregiver burden”. Given these potential negative consequences of caregiver burden, it is important not only to understand the multidimensional components of burden but to also understand the experience from the perspective of the caregiver themselves. Therefore, the objectives of our study are to use exploratory factor analysis to obtain a set of latent factors among a subset of caregiver burden questions identified in previous studies and assess their reliability.MethodsAll data was obtained from the 2011 National Study of Caregiving (NSOC). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed to identify a set of latent factors assessing four domains of caregiver burden in “child caregivers”: those informal caregivers who provide care to a parent or stepparent. Sensitivity analysis was also conducted by repeating the EFA on demographic subsets of caregivers.ResultsAfter multiple factor analyses, four consistent caregiver burden factors emerged from the 23 questions analyzed: Negative emotional, positive emotional, social, and financial. Reliability of each factor varied, and was strongest for the positive emotional domain for caregiver burden. These domains were generally consistent across demographic subsets of informal caregivers.ConclusionThese results provide researchers a more comprehensive understanding of caregiver burden to target interventions to protect caregiver health and maintain this vital component of the US health care system.

Family and Other Unpaid Caregivers and Older Adults with and without Dementia and Disability

“…The NSOC included a variety of questions designed to assess the positive and negative aspects of caregiving. Items that have been used in prior research were selected from this set of measures and used to construct a measure of caregiving difficulty and a measure of restrictions on social participation. As defined elsewhere, caregiving difficulty refers to the emotional, physical, and financial difficulties associated with care provision.…”

A pharmacy carer support service: obtaining new insight into carers in the community

“…Carer burden, and self-neglect of a carer's own health needs, has been reported across a range of diverse contexts. [2][3][4][5] Recent Australian studies demonstrated that many carers also experience chronic condition/s, including pain, arthritis and depression, [6,7] which may or may not be as a result of their caring role. There are 2.86 million self-reported carers in Australia.…”

Experiences of adult family members of caregivers who give care to relatives with dementia

“…Caring for someone with dementia can be a long and intensely emotional journey (Celdran et al, 2012), and just as dementia in individuals progresses in different forms, so too can the experience of caregiving progress differently from person to person (Celdran et al, 2012;Cohen, Cook, Kelley, Sando, & Bell, 2015). Dementia and the impact it has on the individual, caregivers, family members, and healthcare system have been issues of growing interest globally (Alzheimer Society Canada, 2010).…”

“…Some individuals who provide uncompensated care have reported benefits of caregiving (Cohen et al, 2015). Much attention has been focused on the negative aspect of dementia caregiving; however, caring has also been linked with positive feelings and outcomes (Cohen et al, 2015). The benefits of caregiving could be attributed to culture and attitude.…”

“…However, multigenerational living may allow sharing of care among many caregivers and family members (Dotchin et al, 2014). A good percentage of caregivers and family members have positive experiences such as personal growth, feelings of accomplishment, enjoying togetherness, increased faith, and a feeling of a reciprocal bond (Cohen et al, 2015). Having a positive feeling towards caregiving has been associated with culture, values, and beliefs (Daire & Mitcham-Smith, 2006;Roth, Dilworth-Anderson, Huang, Gross, & Gitlin, 2015).…”