Socioenvironmental, Stigma, Risk, and Protective Factors Associated With the Health of Latino LGBTQ+ Dementia Caregivers

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundCompared with caregivers of individuals with other chronic conditions, dementia caregivers experience worse emotional and physical health and are twice as likely to say their health has declined due to caregiving. Both Latino and LGBTQ+ populations are underrepresented in dementia caregiving research, though both populations report a higher prevalence of informal caregiving compared with their non‐Latino White and non‐LGBTQ+ counterparts. We aimed to examine associations between socioenvironmental, stigma, risk, and protective factors and global health among Latino LGBTQ+ caregivers of people with dementia.MethodData came from a cross‐sectional online survey using a non‐probabilistic sample of English‐proficient, Latino LGBTQ+ dementia caregivers recruited via social media (n = 103). We examined associations using bivariate analyses.ResultLatino bisexual respondents reported better global health than Latino gay and lesbian respondents. Females had better health than males and transgender respondents reported poorer health than cisgender respondents. Millennials had worse health than Generation X respondents. There were positive associations between global health and months providing care, lifetime discrimination, day‐to‐day discrimination, lifetime victimization, and microaggressions and negative associations between self‐efficacy for surrogate decision making and family quality of life. Respondents providing care to a spouse (versus a parent, another relative, or friend), those living with their care recipient, those who had been asked by a provider whether they needed help caring for themselves or their care recipient, and respondents who had requested information about financial help for their care recipient had better health. Respondents whose care recipients had advanced directives had poorer health than those who did not.ConclusionSeveral socioenvironmental, stigma, risk, and protective factors were associated with the global health of Latino LGBTQ+ dementia caregivers. Latino LGBTQ+ dementia caregivers may be exhibiting signs of resiliency, for example when it comes to discrimination and caregiving demand, and seeking help may be important for their health. Some associations may be confounded by other factors and more research is needed to understand the pathways by which these factors ultimately influence the health of Latino LGBTQ+ dementia caregivers.