Centre for Health Services Research, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
School of Business, The University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia.
Pharmacoeconomics. 2023 Sep;41(9):1117-1136. doi: 10.1007/s40273-023-01283-6. Epub 2023 Jun 20.
Informal carers are family members, friends or neighbours who care for persons in need. In 2018, around one in ten Australians offered some informal care, most of which was unpaid. It is essential to comprehend how informal caregivers' productivity at work is affected by their caregiving responsibilities. We examine the association between informal caregiving and productivity loss in Australia.
We utilised 11 waves of data drawn from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Longitudinal random-effects logistic regression and random-effects Poisson regression techniques were used to assess the between-person differences in the association between informal caregiving and productivity loss (absenteeism, presenteeism and working hour tension).
The results suggest informal caregiving is associated with a higher rate of absenteeism, presenteeism and working hour tension. We reveal that absence/leave rates at work are greater for those with lighter, moderate and intensive care responsibilities than those without caregiving responsibilities, given other covariates reference categories remain constant. Our findings also indicate that workers with intensive, moderate, and light caregiving responsibilities have considerably higher rates of working hour tension than their peers without caregiving commitments if other covariate reference categories are held constant. The result further shows that, on average, an individual with lighter, moderate and intensive caregiving roles had incurred AUD 276.13, AUD 246.81, and AUD 1927.16, respectively, in absenteeism costs annually compared with their counterparts without caregiving duties.
Our study reveals that working-age caregivers experience greater absenteeism, presenteeism and working hour tension. Adverse effects of informal caregiving are required to perform the cost effectiveness of an intervention given to caregivers to improve carer and patient health. Our findings will assist health technology assessment (HTA) practitioners in performing an economic evaluation of interventions given to caregivers by providing the indirect cost (productivity loss) of caregiving.
非正式护工是指照顾有需要的人的家庭成员、朋友或邻居。2018 年，大约十分之一的澳大利亚人提供了一些非正式护理，其中大部分是无偿的。了解非正式护工的工作生产力如何受到其护理责任的影响至关重要。我们研究了澳大利亚非正式护工与生产力损失之间的关系。
我们利用来自澳大利亚家庭、收入和劳动力动态调查（HILDA）的 11 个波次的数据。使用纵向随机效应逻辑回归和随机效应泊松回归技术，评估了非正式护工与生产力损失（旷工、在职病假和工作时间紧张）之间关联的个体间差异。
结果表明，非正式护工与旷工、在职病假和工作时间紧张的发生率较高相关。我们发现，在其他参考类别保持不变的情况下，与没有护工责任的人相比，有较轻、中等和较重护工责任的人，其工作缺勤/休假率更高。我们的研究结果还表明，在其他协变量参考类别保持不变的情况下，与没有护工承诺的同龄人相比，有较重、中等和较轻护工责任的工人的工作时间紧张率要高得多。结果还进一步表明，与没有护工责任的人相比，平均而言，一个有较轻、中等和较重护工责任的个体每年因旷工而分别产生 276.13 澳元、246.81 澳元和 1927.16 澳元的缺勤成本。
我们的研究表明，在职护工经历了更多的旷工、在职病假和工作时间紧张。鉴于需要对干预措施进行成本效益评估，以提高护工和患者的健康，因此需要考虑非正式护工的不利影响。我们的研究结果将帮助卫生技术评估（HTA）从业者通过提供护工的间接成本（生产力损失）来对给予护工的干预措施进行经济评估。
