“The Only One You Neglect is Yourself”: Health Outcomes for Carers of Spouses or Parents with Dementia. Do Wives and Daughter Carers Differ?

Abstract

Caregiving research has until recently been largely driven by theory testing positivist paradigms focussing on caregiver burden and an identification of its correlates. A related but less clearly understood topic is the relationship between caregiving, health, and quality of life. Using a multi-method design, the research set out to explore women’s perceptions of the experience of dementia care with a particular focus on how caring impacted on health and quality of life. Both quantitative and qualitative data derived from in-depth interviews (n=91) were collected. Results show that spouses who embraced the care role were no less healthy than daughters, but spouses were more likely than daughters to believe that caregiving caused their health to suffer and to identify caregiver burden and health deterioration as reasons for their discontinuing home care. It is argued that services for carers, particularly elderly frail spouses, need to be developed which promote health and quality of life.