Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, 2-1 Naka, Kunitachi, Tokyo, 186-8603, Japan.
School of Economics, University of Hyogo, 8-2-1 Gakuen-Nishi-machi, Nishi-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 651-2197, Japan.
Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2018 Apr 13;16(1):63. doi: 10.1186/s12955-018-0890-2.
Many studies have separately addressed the associations of informal caregiving with coresidence, a caregiver's work status, and health conditions, but not jointly. We examined how their parents' need for care affects middle-aged women's lifestyle and psychological distress, considering the potential simultaneity of decisions on caregiving and living adjustments.
We used 22,305 observations of 7037 female participants (aged 54-67 years) from a nationwide longitudinal survey in Japan conducted during 2009 and 2013. We considered the occurrence of parents' need for care (OPNC) as an external event and estimated regression models to explain how it affected the probabilities of the participants becoming caregivers, coresiding with parents, and working outside the home. We further conducted the mediation analysis to examine how the impact of OPNC on participants' psychological distress measured by Kessler 6 (K6) scores was mediated by caregiving and living adjustments.
OPNC made 30.9% and 30.3% of middle-aged women begin informal caregiving for parents and parents-in-law, respectively, whereas the impact on residential arrangement with parents or work status was non-significant or rather limited. OPNC raised middle-aged women' K6 scores (range: 0-24) by 0.368 (SE: 0.061) and 0.465 (SE: 0.073) for parents and parents-in-law, respectively, and informal caregiving mediated those impacts by 37.7% (95% CI: 15.6-68.2%) and 44.0% (95% CI: 22.2-75.4%), respectively. By contrast, the mediating effect of residential arrangement with parents or work status was non-significant.
Results underscore the fact that OPNC tends to promote middle-aged women to begin informal caregiving and worsen their psychological distress.
许多研究分别探讨了非正式护理与共同居住、照顾者的工作状况和健康状况之间的关联，但没有综合考虑。我们研究了父母对护理的需求如何影响中年女性的生活方式和心理困扰，同时考虑到对护理和生活调整决策的潜在同时性。
我们使用了日本全国纵向调查中 7037 名女性参与者（年龄在 54-67 岁）在 2009 年和 2013 年期间的 22305 次观察。我们将父母的护理需求（OPNC）视为外部事件，并估计回归模型来解释它如何影响参与者成为照顾者、与父母共同居住和外出工作的概率。我们进一步进行了中介分析，以检验 OPNC 对参与者由 Kessler 6（K6）评分测量的心理困扰的影响如何通过照顾和生活调整来中介。
OPNC 使 30.9%和 30.3%的中年女性开始为父母和公婆提供非正式护理，而对与父母或工作状况的居住安排的影响则不显著或相当有限。OPNC 使中年女性的 K6 评分（范围：0-24）分别增加了 0.368（SE：0.061）和 0.465（SE：0.073），对于父母和公婆，非正式护理分别通过 37.7%（95%CI：15.6-68.2%）和 44.0%（95%CI：22.2-75.4%）来中介这些影响。相比之下，与父母或工作状况共同居住的中介效应不显著。
结果强调了这样一个事实，即 OPNC 往往会促使中年女性开始提供非正式护理，并恶化她们的心理困扰。
