Socio-economic inequality in long-term care: a comparison of three time periods in the Netherlands

Abbing, Jens; Suanet, Bianca; Groenou, M.I. Broese Van

doi:10.1017/s0144686x21000647

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It seems obvious that spouses, who spend more time with patients, have the opportunity to provide more informal care. Also, people with lower resources in terms of education and income more often provide informal care because they are less inclined to utilize professional care and often have smaller social networks to assist with caregiving, and as a result, bear the burden of care themselves [ 21 – 24 ]. Healthcare professionals must be aware of these associations and the impact of these variables, as the desire for a high involvement in care and the inability to mobilize other resources to organize care might eventually contribute to the overloading of family members, which often happens gradually and when it becomes apparent it will become a crisis [ 25 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Families’ importance in nursing care–families’ opinions: a cross-sectional survey study in the homecare setting

Woldring,

Paans,

Gans

et al. 2024

Arch Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Informal care is an essential part of support provided in the homecare setting. To ensure effective healthcare provision, good communication and collaboration between informal and formal care providers are crucial. To achieve this aim, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the perspectives of all stakeholders. In the scientific literature, limited knowledge is available regarding family members’ opinions about their involvement in care. To date, no instruments have been developed that accurately measure these opinions. This study aims to elucidate the opinions of family members about their involvement in nursing care. Methods A cross-sectional survey approach was employed. The methodological steps in this study were (1) convert the Families’ Importance in Nursing Care–Nurses’ Attitudes (FINC-NA) from a nurses’ perspective to a family perspective and thus develop the Families’ Importance in Nursing Care–Families’ Opinions (FINC-FO) and (2) measure families’ opinions regarding their involvement in home nursing care. The questionnaire was sent to 3,800 patients with activated patient portals, which accounts for about 17% of the total patient base. Responses were received from 1,339 family members, a response rate of 35%. Results The developed FINC-FO questionnaire showed homogeneity and internal consistency. The results of the questionnaire indicate that family members consider it important to be involved in care and that they wish to be acknowledged as participants in discussions about care (planning) but are less inclined to actively participate in the provision of care by nurses. Family members expressed less explicit opinions about their own support needs. Factors such as level of education, type of partnership, and amount of care provided are seemingly associated with these opinions. Conclusions Family members in the homecare setting wish to be involved in discussions about care (planning). The transition in care from primarily formal to more informal care necessitates an awareness and clear definition—on part of both healthcare professionals and families—of their respective roles in the provision of care. Communication about wishes, expectations, and the need for support in care is essential to ensure quality of care and that the family can sustain caregiving.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Families’ importance in nursing care–families’ opinions: a cross-sectional survey study in the homecare setting

Woldring,

Paans,

Gans

et al. 2024

Arch Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…First, LTC use is primarily a result of health impairments (Andersen & Newman, 2005), while better physical health (Steptoe et al., 2015) and cognitive functioning (Llewellyn et al., 2008) are both associated with higher PWB. Furthermore, those with higher education report higher wellbeing compared to the lower educated (Navarro‐Carrillo et al., 2020) and also use LTC differently: they use less informal and formal care, but more privately paid care (Abbing et al., 2021). Given that recent cohorts of 75–85‐year‐olds may suffer less from severe health impairments (Verropoulou & Tsimbos, 2017) and are higher educated than their peers in earlier cohorts (Abbing et al., 2021), we control for these variables in our analyses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How does long‐term care impact the psychological wellbeing of older adults in different care policy contexts in the Netherlands?

Abbing

Suanet

Groenou

2022

Health Social Care Comm

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Receipt of long-term care (LTC) is generally associated with worse psychological wellbeing for community-dwelling older adults. In addition to objective features of care use (e.g. formal vs. informal care), the subjective evaluation of care provision in terms of perceived sufficiency might be particularly predictive of one's wellbeing but is seldomly considered in the literature. Substantial changes in the availability of long-term care in past decades raise the question to what extent these effects, if present, are consistent over historic time. The present study, therefore, aims at better understanding the associations between types of LTC use and perceived care sufficiency on psychological wellbeing in a changing LTC context in the Netherlands. Data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) were used from three points in time: 1998 (N = 582), 2008 (N = 459) and 2018 (N = 415). At each wave, participants were between 75 and 85 years of age and living independently. The results show that afteradjusting for age, gender, education and health, using formal LTC had a negative effect on depressive symptoms only in 2018, but that this effect was not significantly worse compared to previous cohorts. Perceived care sufficiency was consistently negatively associated with depressive symptoms in all three points in time. This suggests that despite a less generous Dutch LTC system, psychological wellbeing among LTC users remains stable. Perceiving care provision as sufficient, however, can help older adults maintain psychological wellbeing and should be considered by researchers and policymakers that aim to improve care recipients' wellbeing.

show abstract

“…In contrast, informal care use is stable among lower SES groups; it decreases steeply among higher SES groups. The authors concluded that the findings highlight the importance of education for explaining variation and changes over time in care use (Abbing, Suanet, & van Groenou, 2021).…”

Section: Income and Socioeconomic Statusmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The results highlighted that healthy life indicators were significantly lower among the no-schooling participants and that older caregivers were associated with weaker enabling variables (Alrashed, 2017). Similarly, in a study of health literacy amongst caregivers of patients with A recent study by Abbing et al (2021) investigates to what extent educational and income inequalities in the use of formal, informal and privately paid care have changed over time in the Netherlands. The authors report that an increase in inequality was only found in the use of informal care.…”

Section: Income and Socioeconomic Statusmentioning

confidence: 96%

An Exploration of the Concept of Well-being In Relation to the Care of Older People

Cheshire-Allen¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This research explores the concept of well-being as it applies to family carers of older people and the experiences of those carers in the light of a reworked version of that concept. The study is situated within a broader context of the ‘care crisis’ consisting of an increase in older age care demands alongside a decrease in the resource or care capacity to support demand, resulting in a so-called ‘care deficit’. Notions of ‘well-being’ have become nested within this crisis narrative. During the past five years, particularly in the UK, references to well-being have been explicitly embedded into social care welfare support programmes, and are used to determine and shape how care support services are delivered to carers and those requiring care. However, as well as being ubiquitous, the term is contentious. Its meaning in the care context has yet to be resolved, and in particular, scant critical attention has been paid to the term’s significance in the context of care for older people. This study responds to this knowledge gap by exploring the meaning and implication of well-being in the context of care of older people. This qualitative research study provides a full analysis of relevant theory, policy and empirical research addressing well-being and family carers. The central research question is: What is well-being in the context of family care of older people, and why does it matter? The research question is explored through an extended critical engagement with relevant well-being and care theoretical foundations (Nussbaum, 2011; Tronto, 2013) and through a policy analysis of the Social Services and Well-being Act (Wales) 2014. A novel theoretical framework founded upon a social justice perspective and drawing upon critical care ethics and the capability approach is developed. Through critical engagement with the latent meaning of well-being, I argue that the mainstream conception in the context of care is narrow and reductive. Based upon and reflecting ideas about older age and care that mute the value of care as an essential component of all human life and, have the potential in practice to limit and damage family carers’ lives and life chances. In the latter part of the thesis, this framework is applied to primary data gathered through thirty qualitative semi-structured interviews with family carers of older people in Wales. The analysis explores how ‘well-being’ as an enduring ideal defining what it means to live a ‘good life’ interacts with how care in older age is understood. The analysis identifies the key themes of well-being as a multidimensional and relational idea, freedom, choice, vulnerability and dependency. From these findings, I suggest that there is value in theorising an imperfect conception of well-being that acknowledges decline and dependence, particularly in older age care. Furthermore, I suggest a reformulation of well-being in the context of older age care, based upon acknowledging relationality, inequalities and socio-political and cultural contexts. Such a conception, I argue, has the potential to provide a firmer basis on which to articulate and tackle well-being within social care policy and to combat harmful assumptions about the place of care of older people within those systems and the value of caring relationships themselves.

show abstract

Socio-economic inequality in long-term care: a comparison of three time periods in the Netherlands

Cited by 6 publications

References 38 publications

Families’ importance in nursing care–families’ opinions: a cross-sectional survey study in the homecare setting

Families’ importance in nursing care–families’ opinions: a cross-sectional survey study in the homecare setting

How does long‐term care impact the psychological wellbeing of older adults in different care policy contexts in the Netherlands?

An Exploration of the Concept of Well-being In Relation to the Care of Older People

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About