The impact of informal care on caregiver’s mental health in Europe

Informal care is increasingly seen as an important part of the elderly care process in today’s ageing society. While the population structure is changing towards increased number of elderly, finite resources in the health care sector demand the family members to take part in the care provision. However, informal care provision may negatively impact the caregiver’s wellbeing, potentially leading to deterioration in both physical and psychological health. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of caregiver-, care recipient-, caregiving- and culture factors on the mental health of adult children providing care for a parent or a parent-in-law outside their household in Europe. A European wide database (SHARE) was used to draw the sample of caregivers and euro-d score was used as the dependent variable to measure mental health. In addition, the study tested whether continued caregiving was associated with worse mental health. The findings of this study suggest that within the entire sample of caregivers, previous mental health state, gender, income and whether the caregiver provided paperwork help were significantly associated (p<0.05) with the caregiver’s current mental health state. Furthermore, sub-group analyses provided insight into the factors that significantly associate with the mental health of caregiver sub-groups. Within the female caregivers being from Scandinavia, compared to Central Europe or Mediterranean, was associated (p<0.05) with a decrease in the euro-d score. For male caregivers being from Mediterranean, compared to Scandinavia or Central Europe, was associated (p<0.05) with a decrease in the euro-d score. Differences were also reported between the continued and discontinued groups. Considering the special needs of different sub-groups of caregivers is important as factors, such as gender play a role in how caregiving is perceived. Furthermore, an important finding of the thesis is that the provision of paperwork help (p<0.5) and practical help (p<0.1) show a negative association with caregiver’s mental health. Therefore, considering the needs of caregivers providing different types of care is important in order to relieve the stress of caregiving on the informal caregiver.