A Comprehensive Assessment of Informal Caregivers of Patients in a Primary Healthcare Home-Care Program

Virginia Rodrigo-Baños, Marta del Moral-Pairada and Luis González- de Paz
Additional contact information
Virginia Rodrigo-Baños: Primary Health Care Center Les Corts, Consorci d’Atenció Primària de Salut Barcelona Esquerra (CAPSBE), C. Mejia Lequerica S/N, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Marta del Moral-Pairada: Primary Health Care Center Casanova, Consorci d’Atenció Primària de Salut Barcelona Esquerra (CAPSBE), Rosselló, 161, 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Luis González- de Paz: Primary Health Care Center Les Corts, Consorci d’Atenció Primària de Salut Barcelona Esquerra (CAPSBE), C. Mejia Lequerica S/N, 08028 Barcelona, Spain

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-14

Abstract: Studies of the characteristics of informal caregivers and associated factors have focused on care-receiver disease or caregiver social and psychological traits; however, an integral description may provide better understanding of informal caregivers’ problems. A multicenter cross-sectional study in primary healthcare centers was performed in Barcelona (Spain). Participants were a random sample of informal caregivers of patients in a home-care program. Primary outcomes were health-related quality of life and caregiver burden, and related factors were sociodemographic data, clinical and risk factors, social support and social characteristics, use of healthcare services, and care receivers’ status. In total, 104 informal caregivers were included (mean age 68.25 years); 81.73% were female, 54.81% were retired, 58.65% had high comorbidity, and 48.08% of care receivers had severe dependence. Adjusted multivariate regression models showed health-related quality of life and the caregivers’ burden were affected by comorbidity, age, time of care, and dependency of care receiver, while social support and depression also showed relative importance. Aging, chronic diseases, and comorbidity should be included when explaining informal caregivers’ health status and wellbeing. The effectiveness of interventions to support informal caregivers should comprehensively evaluate caregivers when designing programs, centering interventions on informal caregivers and not care receivers’ conditions.

Keywords: caregivers; primary healthcare; home-care services; elderly; cross-sectional studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11588/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11588/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:21:p:11588-:d:672013

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().