Department of Health Systems Management, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, 1930600 Yezreel Valley, Israel.
School of Nursing, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642-8404, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Dec 19;17(24):9531. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17249531.
Informal caregivers are people providing some type of unpaid, ongoing assistance to a person with a chronic illness or disability. Long-term care measures and policies cannot take place without taking into account the quantitatively crucial role played by informal caregivers. We use the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), and the Study on Health and Ageing in Europe (SHARE) to measure the prevalence of informal caregivers in the European population, and analyze associated socio-demographic factors. This rate ranges between about 13 percent in Portugal and Spain, and more than 22 percent in Luxembourg, Belgium, and Denmark. It declines in older age groups and, on average, is lower in men than in women in all countries studied, and lower among the poorly educated compared to those with higher levels of education. However, large variance was observed in the average share of informal caregivers for most countries between the three surveys. Our findings, estimated through the three surveys, reveal common trends, but also a series of disparities. Additional research will be needed to enable policy makers to access a richer and more harmonized body of data, allowing them to adopt truly evidence-based and targeted policies and interventions in this field.
非专业照料者是指为患有慢性疾病或残疾的人提供某种形式的无偿、持续帮助的人。如果不考虑非专业照料者在数量上的重要作用，长期护理措施和政策就无法实施。我们使用欧洲健康访谈调查（EHIS）、欧洲生活质量调查（EQLS）和欧洲老龄化研究（SHARE）来衡量欧洲人口中非专业照料者的流行率，并分析相关的社会人口因素。这一比例在葡萄牙和西班牙约为 13%，在卢森堡、比利时和丹麦则超过 22%。它在老年人群体中下降，并且在所有研究的国家中，平均来说，男性比女性低，与受教育程度较高的人相比，受教育程度较低的人也较低。然而，在这三个调查中，大多数国家的非专业照料者的平均比例存在很大差异。通过这三个调查估计的我们的研究结果揭示了共同的趋势，但也存在一系列差异。需要进一步的研究，以使政策制定者能够获得更丰富和更协调的数据，使他们能够在这一领域采取真正基于证据和有针对性的政策和干预措施。
