Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
VA South Texas Health Care, San Antonio, Texas, USA.
Gerontologist. 2024 Jan 1;64(1). doi: 10.1093/geront/gnad011.
The financial burden of caregiving has received less research attention than physical and emotional costs. This is especially true for underserved ethnic minorities. Financial strain affects mental and physical health and is unequally distributed across caregivers of different races and ethnicities. Although caregivers overall spend, on average, one quarter of their income on caregiving, Latino caregivers, the focus of this study, spend nearly half.
To better understand this disparity, we conducted 11 qualitative interviews with 14 Latino caregivers of persons living with dementia located in either California or Texas. Interview transcripts were thematically coded, guided by a material-psychosocial-behavioral conceptual model of financial strain.
We identified 3 themes: daily needs and costs, psychological distress caused by financial issues, and stressful barriers to accessing family and societal support. Furthermore, interviews revealed how Latino culture may influence spending patterns and management of costs. Findings suggest that preference by Latino families to care for a family member in the home may be met with a financial disadvantage due to the high out-of-pocket costs of care.
A better understanding of the factors contributing to high costs for Latino caregivers and how these costs affect caregivers will inform approaches at both the individual and policy levels and develop culturally relevant interventions to help Latino families to lower caregiving costs. This is especially important as the number of Latinos living with dementia is expected to increase over the next 4 decades and effective interventions are lacking.
与身体和情感成本相比，护理的经济负担得到的研究关注较少。这对于服务不足的少数族裔来说尤其如此。经济压力会影响身心健康，而且不同种族和族裔的护理人员之间的分配不均。尽管总体而言，护理人员平均将四分之一的收入用于护理，但作为本研究重点的拉丁裔护理人员，这一比例接近一半。
为了更好地理解这种差异，我们对加利福尼亚州或德克萨斯州的 14 名照顾痴呆症患者的拉丁裔护理人员进行了 11 次定性访谈。访谈记录采用主题编码方式，以物质-心理社会-行为经济压力模型为指导。
我们确定了 3 个主题：日常需求和费用、经济问题引起的心理困扰以及获取家庭和社会支持的压力障碍。此外，访谈还揭示了拉丁文化如何影响支出模式和成本管理。研究结果表明，拉丁裔家庭倾向于在家中照顾家庭成员，这可能会因护理费用高昂而处于经济劣势。
更好地了解导致拉丁裔护理人员费用高的因素以及这些费用如何影响护理人员，将为个人和政策层面的方法提供信息，并制定与文化相关的干预措施，以帮助拉丁裔家庭降低护理成本。随着未来 40 年预计拉丁裔痴呆症患者人数的增加，以及缺乏有效的干预措施，这一点尤为重要。
