Abstract
Approximately seven million people in the UK are engaged in informal caregiving. Informal caregivers are at risk of poorer mental and physical health. However, less is known about how the relationship between the informal caregiving and psychological distress changes over time. The aim of this study was to investigate longitudinal associations between the informal caregiving and psychological distress amongst UK men and women aged 16+. Data were analysed from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS, n = 9368), a nationally representative study of UK households. Longitudinal linear mixed modelling was used to estimate associations between the longitudinal patterns of informal caregiving (non-caregiver/one episode of 1-2 years/intermittent caregiving/3+ years caregiving) and trajectories of psychological distress across seven waves of UKHLS data. Informal caregiving was not associated with psychological distress for men. Women engaged in long-term (⩾3 years) or intermittent caregiving had higher levels of psychological distress at the point of initiation, compared with women who were not caregivers throughout the study period (3+ years caregiver: regression coefficient 0.48, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.07-0.89; intermittent caregiver: regression coefficient 0.47, 95% CI 0.02-0.92). Trajectories of psychological distress changed little over time, suggesting a plateau effect for these caregiving women. Women engaged in long-term or repeated shorter episodes of informal caregiving reported more symptoms of psychological distress than non-caregiving women. Given the increased risk of reporting psychological distress and the increasing importance of the informal care sector, the risk of poorer mental health of informal caregivers should be a priority for public health.
Highlights
Informal caregiving is a large and important part of the UKs social care sector; currently one in 10 people are engaged in informal caregiving and this is projected to increase by 3.4 million by 2030 (CarersTrust, 2017)
Another study using Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data found an immediate effect of onset of caregiving for an elderly parent followed by a decline in psychological health, but a 2-year lag between the onset of caregiving and physical health decline (Coe and Van Houtven, 2009)
The characteristics of the analytic sample are presented in Table 1. 24.1% of participants were informal caregivers at some point (9.1% were informal caregiving for one short episode, 6.4% were intermittently caregiving and 8.6% were long-term caregivers for ⩾3 consecutive years)
Summary
Informal caregiving is a large and important part of the UKs social care sector; currently one in 10 (approximately 7 million) people are engaged in informal caregiving and this is projected to increase by 3.4 million by 2030 (CarersTrust, 2017). The health effects of informal caregiving are generally more pronounced in women caregivers than in men caregivers (Yee and Schulz, 2000; Amirkhanyan and Wolf, 2006; Pinquart and Sörensen, 2006), and for those providing >10 hours of care per week (Smith et al, 2014). This is because women are more likely to be primary caregivers, be engaged in more intense caregiving and report higher caregiver burden (Pinquart and Sörensen, 2006; Arber and Ginn, 2007). Given the increased risk of reporting psychological distress and the increasing importance of the informal care sector, the risk of poorer mental health of informal caregivers should be a priority for public health
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