Möhring Katja, Zinn Sabine, Ehrlich Ulrike
Faculty of Social Sciences, Economics and Business Administration, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany.
Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
Eur J Ageing. 2023 May 11;20(1):15. doi: 10.1007/s10433-023-00761-2.
We examine changes in the well-being of family caregivers during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the SOEP-CoV study. The COVID-19 pandemic posed an extraordinary challenge for family caregivers, as care recipients are a high-risk group requiring special protection, and professional care services were severely cut back. The specific situation of the COVID-19 pandemic allows us to re-examine the caregiver stress process model. Using first difference regression models, we analyse changes in general life satisfaction and depressive symptoms (PHQ-4 score) among family caregivers between 2019 and spring 2020, differentiating by care intensity and duration of the care episode. Caregivers show similar changes in well-being as non-caregivers: a simultaneous increase in depressive symptoms and life satisfaction between 2019 and 2020. However, our results reveal heterogeneity within the group of family caregivers as we find differences according to caregiving dynamics and intensity. Among the group of continuing caregivers, high-intensity caregivers experience a larger increase in life satisfaction, and low-intensity caregivers a smaller increase in life satisfaction, compared to non-caregivers. Our results therefore provide some support for the role enhancement hypothesis for continuing caregivers with high time commitment.
我们利用德国社会经济面板（SOEP）和SOEP-CoV研究的数据，考察了德国新冠疫情早期家庭照护者福祉的变化。新冠疫情给家庭照护者带来了巨大挑战，因为照护对象属于需要特殊保护的高风险群体，且专业照护服务大幅缩减。新冠疫情的特殊情况使我们能够重新审视照护者压力过程模型。我们使用一阶差分回归模型，分析了2019年至2020年春季家庭照护者总体生活满意度和抑郁症状（PHQ-4得分）的变化，并按照护强度和照护时长进行区分。与非照护者相比，照护者的福祉变化情况与之相似：2019年至2020年期间，抑郁症状和生活满意度同时上升。然而，我们的研究结果揭示了家庭照护者群体内部的异质性，因为我们发现照护动态和强度存在差异。在持续照护者群体中，与非照护者相比，高强度照护者的生活满意度提升幅度更大，而低强度照护者的生活满意度提升幅度较小。因此，我们的研究结果为长时间投入的持续照护者的角色增强假说提供了一些支持。
