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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Emotional and physical health of informal caregivers of residents at the end of life
— the role of social support | | Author(s) | Sharon Wallace Williams, Christianna S Williams, Sheryl Zimmerman |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 63B, no 3, May 2008 |
| Pages | pp S171-S183 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Informal care ; Mental health [elderly] ; Health [elderly] ; Stress ; Social contacts ; Residents [care homes] ; Death ; Evaluation ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The objectives of this study were to examine the relationship between selected decedent and caregiver characteristics, facility-related perceptions, and emotional and physical health of 434 informal caregivers (94% family) of recently deceased residents of residential care homes / assisted living facilities and nursing homes. The authors also examined potential mediating effects of social support (informal, staff, and spiritual). They analysed data using linear mixed models. Results showed that among caregivers, younger age, female gender, more education, financial burden, other dependents, poorer perceptions of care, and more care involvement were associated with more emotional strain. More staff support also was associated with more emotional strain and partially mediated the relationship between having a trusted staff member and emotional strain. Characteristics associated with poorer physical health included unemployment, financial burden, poorer physician communication, and trusted staff member. Informal social support was directly related to better physical health and mediated the relationships between physical health and both physician communication and financial burden. Many characteristics related to end-of-life caregiving outcomes in long-term care are consistent with community-based studies, suggesting that end-of-life caregiving outcomes in long-term care are not markedly different than in other settings. However, the role of staff support may either facilitate or complicate emotional strain and merits additional study. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-091209210 A |
| Classmark | P6: D: CC: QNH: TOA: KX: CW: 4C: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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