Characterizing caregiving supportive services use by caregiving relationship status
Background Informal caregivers of older adults experience a high degree of psychosocial burden and strain. These emotional experiences often stem from stressful tasks associated with caregiving. Caregiving supportive services that provide assistance for stressful tasks are instrumental in alleviatin...
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Published in | Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) Vol. 71; no. 5; pp. 1566 - 1572 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Hoboken, USA
John Wiley & Sons, Inc
01.05.2023
Wiley Subscription Services, Inc |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Background
Informal caregivers of older adults experience a high degree of psychosocial burden and strain. These emotional experiences often stem from stressful tasks associated with caregiving. Caregiving supportive services that provide assistance for stressful tasks are instrumental in alleviating caregiving burden and strain. Research is limited on what types of supportive services caregivers are utilizing by relationship status and their source of information regarding these services. We sought to characterize caregiving supportive services use by caregiver relationship status.
Methods
We analyzed cross‐sectional data from the 2015 National Study of Caregiving limited to caregivers of older adults ≥65 years of age. Caregiver relationship status (i.e., spouse, child, other relative/non‐relative) was the independent variable. Type of supportive service and source of information about supportive services were the dependent variables. Bivariate analyses were performed to examine the association with caregiver relationship status and associations between use of caregiving supportive services and caregiver and care recipient characteristics. Among service users, we measured associations between caregiver relationship status, type of supportive services used, and source of information about supportive services.
Results
Our sample consisted of 1871 informal caregivers, 30.7% reported using supportive services. By caregiver relationship status, children had the greatest use of supportive services compared to spouses and other relatives/non‐relatives (46.5% vs. 27.6% vs. 25.9%, p = <0.01, respectively). Among users of services, there were no differences in type of services used. Spouses primarily received their information about services from a medical provider or social worker (73.8%, p = <0.001).
Conclusion
Our findings highlight the need to ensure that other caregiving groups, such as spouses and other relatives/non‐relatives, have access to important supportive services such as financial support. Medical providers and/or social workers should be leveraged and equipped to provide this information and refer to services accordingly. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Jasmine L. Travers is responsible for the conception of the manuscript and led its development. Chanee Fabius performed all of the analyses for the manuscript and contributed to the development of the manuscript. All authors provided a critical review and revision of the manuscript. |
ISSN: | 0002-8614 1532-5415 |
DOI: | 10.1111/jgs.18213 |