Comparing adult child and spousal caregiver burden and potential causes.

Abstract

12127 Background: Adult children caring for a parent with cancer comprise a significant segment of caregivers. Demographic trends indicate this caregiving population will grow as the baby boomer generation ages. Yet little is known about adult child caregivers’ needs and experiences and how they differ from the well-studied spousal caregiver. This knowledge gap may hinder efforts to ameliorate adult children’s caregiver burden and its impact on patients. Methods: We analyzed adult child and spousal/partner caregivers’ surveys from the Cancer Care Outcomes Research and Surveillance consortium, a multi-regional population-based study of approximately 10,000 persons with newly diagnosed colorectal and lung cancer. We used t-tests and a series of multivariate regression models to assess whether adult child and spousal caregivers’ caregiving responsibilities, social/emotional burden, and financial burden (scaled 0-10) differed and examined patient and caregiver characteristics’ mediation of variation in burden. Results: Compared to spouses/partners (N=1029), adult children (N=230) completed similar levels of caregiving tasks but spent less time (14 vs. 24 hours/week; p<0.001). However, adult children experienced higher social/emotional burden (2.9 vs. 2.4; p<0.01). In baseline models controlling for patient clinical factors, caregiving characteristics, and caregiver demographics, adult children’s average social/emotional and financial burdens were statistically higher than spouses/partners. Additional adjustment for caregivers’ childcare responsibilities and employment eliminated social/emotional and financial burden disparities. Additional adjustment to the baseline model for caregiver-patient gender concordance eliminated the social/emotional burden gap. Communication quality was a large and statistically significant predictor of both burdens (p<0.001). Conclusions: Adult children spend less time caregiving than spouses/partners but experience higher caregiving burden. Adult children’s childcare and career responsibilities help explain this increased burden. Gender concordance between caregiver and patient may also contribute to social/emotional burden, adding important context to prior research indicating female caregivers experience the greatest burden. Interventions to improve communication between caregivers and patients have the potential to reduce both adult child and spouses/partners caregiver burden. Adjusted average caregiver burden for adult child and spousal caregivers. [Table: see text]