Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Health Soc Care Community. 2022 Jul;30(4):e953-e961. doi: 10.1111/hsc.13497. Epub 2021 Jul 10.
This study investigates under what conditions older spouses receive personal care from their spouse. Whether spousal care is provided is determined by individual and societal factors related to informal and formal care provision. Individual factors concern the need for care (the care recipient's health status), the spouse's ability to provide care (the spouse's health status) and the quality of the marital bond. Societal factors reflect changing policies on long-term care (indicated by the year in which care started) and gender role socialisation (gender). From the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam, which completed eight observations between 1996 and 2016, we selected 221 independently living married respondents, aged 59-93, who received personal care for the first time and had at least one previous measurement without care use. The results show that if an older adult received personal care, the likelihood of receiving that care from the spouse decreased over the years: from 80% in 1996 to 50% in 2016. A husband or wife was less likely to receive spousal care when the spouse was unable to provide care or the quality of the relationship was low. No gender differences were found in either the prevalence of spousal care use or in the factors associated with that use. Thus, individual factors and the societal context seem to determine whether one receives personal care from their spouse. The decline in the likelihood of personal care provision from a spouse over the years may indicate a crumbling of family solidarity, an unmeasured and growing inability of the older spouse to provide care or an increasing complexity of care needs that requires the use of formal care. As care-giving can be a chronic stressor and most spouses provide care without assistance from others, attention from policy makers is needed to sustain the well-being of older couples.
本研究探讨了在什么情况下老年配偶会从配偶那里获得个人护理。配偶是否提供护理取决于与非正式和正式护理提供相关的个人和社会因素。个人因素涉及护理需求（护理接受者的健康状况）、配偶提供护理的能力（配偶的健康状况）和婚姻关系的质量。社会因素反映了长期护理政策的变化（由开始护理的年份表示）和性别角色社会化（性别）。我们从 1996 年至 2016 年进行了八次观察的纵向老龄化研究阿姆斯特丹中选择了 221 名独立生活的已婚受访者，他们年龄在 59 岁至 93 岁之间，首次接受个人护理，并且至少有一次之前没有使用过护理。结果表明，如果老年人接受了个人护理，那么多年来从配偶那里获得这种护理的可能性会降低：从 1996 年的 80%降至 2016 年的 50%。当配偶无法提供护理或关系质量较低时，配偶获得配偶护理的可能性较小。在配偶护理使用的普遍性或与其使用相关的因素方面，没有发现性别差异。因此，个人因素和社会背景似乎决定了一个人是否从配偶那里获得个人护理。多年来，从配偶那里获得个人护理的可能性下降，这可能表明家庭团结的破裂、配偶无法提供护理的未被测量且不断增加的能力下降，或者护理需求的日益复杂，需要使用正式护理。由于护理可能是一个慢性压力源，并且大多数配偶在没有其他人帮助的情况下提供护理，因此政策制定者需要关注，以维持老年夫妇的幸福。
