Berglund Erik, Lytsy Per, Westerling Ragnar
Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Box 564, SE-751 22, Uppsala, Sweden.
Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2015 Jul 29;13:109. doi: 10.1186/s12955-015-0309-2.
Informal caregiving by relatives is a great resource for individuals as well as for society, but the caregiving role is associated with health problems for the caregiver. This study aimed to compare caregivers' self-rated health, number of recent days with poor health and psychological wellbeing with that of non-caregivers in a general Swedish population.
From 2004 to 2013, 90,845 Swedish people completed a postal questionnaire about their health, number of recent days with poor health during last month, psychological wellbeing and if they were performing caregiving or not. Descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, ANOVA, logistic regressions and negative binomial regression models were used to investigate associations between being a caregiver or not and health and wellbeing. Negative binomial regression was used to assess the relation between caregiver status and recent days with poor health or functioning.
Eleven percent reported having a caregiving role. Caregivers reported poorer self-rated health compared to non-caregivers, also in adjusted models; odds ratio (OR): 1.07 with a 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01-1.13. Caregivers also reported lower psychological wellbeing compared to non-caregivers; OR: 1.22, CI: 1.15-1.30. Caregiving status was associated with more recent days with poor physical health and more recent days with poor mental health.
This study suggests that caregivers have worse perceptions in self-rated health and psychological wellbeing compared with non-caregivers, indicating that the role of caregiver is adversely associated with health. This association also appears in terms of reporting days of poor health in the last month. The underlying mechanism of these associations, including the potential detrimental health effects of being a caregiver, needs to be investigated in longitudinal studies.
亲属提供的非正式照护对个人和社会而言都是一项重要资源，但照护角色与照护者的健康问题相关。本研究旨在比较瑞典普通人群中照护者与非照护者的自评健康状况、近期健康不佳天数以及心理健康状况。
2004年至2013年期间，90845名瑞典人填写了一份邮寄问卷，内容涉及他们的健康状况、上个月近期健康不佳天数、心理健康状况以及是否正在提供照护。采用描述性统计、卡方分析、方差分析、逻辑回归和负二项回归模型来研究是否为照护者与健康及幸福之间的关联。使用负二项回归评估照护者状态与近期健康不佳或功能不良天数之间的关系。
11%的人报告承担照护角色。与非照护者相比，照护者报告的自评健康状况较差，在调整模型中也是如此；优势比（OR）：1.07，95%置信区间（CI）：1.
