The Burden of Care: A National Survey on the Prevalence, Demographic Characteristics and Health Problems Among Young Adult Carers Attending Higher Education in Norway

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to examine prevalence, characteristics and health outcomes among young adults (18 to 25 years) who provide informal care to family members or others with physical or mental illnesses, substance misuse or disabilities. Design: The sample was obtained from a national survey in Norway from 2018 among students in higher education (the SHoT2018-study). The current sample comprise 40,205 participants, 70.2% women, mean age 22 years (SD = 1.7). Outcome Measures: Participants answered questions on care responsibilities, mental health problems (The Hopkins Symptoms Checklist-25), insomnia (sleep questionnaire), somatic health (Somatic Symptom Scale-8), and life satisfaction (Satisfaction With Life Scale). Results: 5.5% of the respondents reported having care responsibilities. Caring was associated with being female, single, having divorced parents, being an immigrant, and having financial difficulties. More mental health problems, insomnia, somatic symptoms, and lower life satisfaction were found among respondents with care responsibilities. Number of hours of caring was associated with negative health outcomes in a doseresponse pattern. Conclusion: Professionals within health care, social services and the educational system should be sensitized to the needs of young adults with care responsibilities for family members or others with illness, substance misuse, or disabilities. The negative health problems among these young adult carers (YACs) should be acknowledged, and adequate support made available.

Pathways to Mental Well-Being in Young Carers: The Role of Benefit Finding, Coping, Helplessness, and Caring Tasks

“…Their caring tasks can be time-consuming. A recent study found that adolescents and young adults with caring roles spent about 3–5 h helping each day (Haugland et al 2019 ). Due to their responsibilities, these young carers’ day-to-day lives can be stressful (e.g., Ali et al 2012 ), with potential risks to their own mental health (e.g., Dharampal and Ani 2020 ).…”

Well-Being and Perceived Stress of Adolescent Young Carers: A Cross-Sectional Comparative Study

“…A few studies have included indicators for the socioeconomic background as covariates when comparing mental health outcomes between young carers and their peers. These studies showed that poorer outcomes among young carers could not be explained by family context variables only (e.g., Haugland et al, 2019;Tseliou et al, 2018). However, viewed from an ecological perspective, development in different areas, including mental health, results from the interactions between the person and the environment (e.g., Tomasetti, 2016).…”

Promoting Mental Health and Well-Being among Adolescent Young Carers in Europe: A Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol

“…Caring has especially been linked to stress, anxiety and depression symptoms when occurring in the adolescent phase [ 10 , 11 ], which is remarkable given evidence that most mental health problems that start during adolescence subsequently persist into adulthood [ 12 ]. Risk factors that have been reported to affect physical and mental health outcomes of adolescent YCs (AYCs) include being female or non-binary and having a migration background [ 8 , 13 ], living with care recipients [ 8 ], the extent (i.e., greater amount of time) [ 13 , 14 , 15 ] and nature (i.e., personal and emotional care, financial and practical management) [ 7 , 14 ] of caring activities and food insecurity [ 16 , 17 ]. AYCs are also likely to face difficulties in education that negatively impact future employability, career aspirations and socioeconomic status [ 5 , 18 , 19 , 20 ].…”

“…However, to our knowledge, no resilience-based intervention for AYCs has yet been tested in Europe. In Australia, a resilience-based program for children (aged [12][13][14][15][16][17][18] of parents with a mental illness was evaluated [41]. However, allocation of the 44 participating AYCs to intervention or control groups was not randomized.…”