Association between caregivers' health-related quality of life and care recipients' health outcomes

Top Ten Tips Palliative Care Clinicians Should Know About Caring for Family Caregivers

Family and friend caregivers play critical roles in ensuring that persons with serious illness receive high-quality care, and their responsibilities often increase as patients transition from receiving solely curative-focused care to primarily palliative-focused care. Integrating family caregivers into the health care team and supporting them in their role has significant benefits for family caregivers, patients, health care systems, communities, and society. Palliative care clinicians across all disciplines are uniquely suited to provide necessary training and support to family caregivers as they navigate the demands of their role. Here, we contend that providing comprehensive palliative care includes addressing the needs of family caregivers and provide ten tips and practical guidance to assist palliative care clinicians to support family caregivers. Engaging family caregivers as partners in care will ultimately allow palliative care clinicians to deliver the highest quality patient care and ensure the best possible outcomes for families facing serious illnesses.

Health-related quality of life in family caregivers of autistic adults

Introduction

Family members of autistic individuals often provide support for their autistic relative throughout the lifespan which can lead to massive burden themselves. Reduced health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in family caregivers is assumed; however, only a handful studies on the HRQoL of family caregivers providing care to adult relatives exist as opposed to autistic children. Thus, the current study aimed to (i) investigate the current state of physical and mental HRQoL of family caregivers of autistic adults compared to the general population, and (ii) examine caregiver-related (e.g., age, subjective caregiver burden) and care recipient-related variables (e.g., symptom severity, utilization of formal services) explaining variance in the caregivers' HRQoL.

Methods

N = 149 family caregivers completed a nationwide online survey, including the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-8) in order to assess the HRQoL. T-tests were used to compare the HRQoL of family caregivers with the general population. Bivariate correlational and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted in order to identify predictors explaining variance in family caregivers' HRQoL.

Results

Family caregivers of autistic adults reported significantly lower physical (M = 46.71, SD = 8.72, Cohen's d = 0.42) and mental HRQoL (M = 40.15, SD = 11.28, Cohen's d = 1.35) compared to the general population. Multiple linear regression with the mental HRQoL as the outcome showed a significant model (F(11, 95) = 5.53, p < .001, adj. R2 = .32) with increased subjective burden explaining most of the variance in mental HRQoL (ß = .32, GDW = .141, p < .001). Multiple linear regression analysis with the outcome physical HRQoL did not reveal a statistically significant model (F(11,95) = 1.09, p = .38). However, bivariate analyses also showed a positive correlation with the subjective caregiver burden (r= .20, p < .05).

Discussion

Findings highlight the need to consider HRQoL (and caregiver burden) of family caregivers of autistic adults in several healthcare settings to monitor a potential comprised health status in early stages, with the long-term goal to improve family caregivers' HRQoL.

Engagement in Physical Activity and Quality of Life Among Informal Caregivers of Older Adults

OBJECTIVES

This study examined (1) the association of caregiver engagement in physical activity (PA) with their quality of life (QoL) and (2) the moderating effect of caregiver engagement in PA on the relationship between several caregiving stressors and their QoL, among informal caregivers of older adults.

METHODS

Multivariable regression was applied to data from 278 adult caregivers, aged 23-90 years, in Singapore.

RESULTS

Engagement in PA by caregivers was positively associated with psychological, social relationships, and environment domains of their QoL. Caregiver engagement in PA also mitigated the negative association between care-recipient mood impairment and QoL of caregivers in the physical health and social relationships domains.

DISCUSSION

QoL of caregivers may be improved or protected by their regular engagement in PA, especially when their care-recipients have mood impairment. Policymakers and practitioners should encourage caregivers to engage in PA and provide them with the necessary support to do so.

Factors associated with health-related quality of life of informal caregivers of older patients and the mediating role of subjective caregivers' burden

BACKGROUND

Caregiving has been associated with increased subjective burden and decreased health-related quality of life (HRQOL) for caregivers. The aim of the study was to clarify the precise relationship between caregivers' burden, caregivers' HRQOL, and other risk factors, considering that subjective burden was a risk factor for poor HRQOL, which may also mediate the effects of some known risk factors.

METHODS

In this cross-sectional study, patients' and their informal caregivers' characteristics were recorded for 311 patient-caregiver dyads. Subjective caregiver burden and caregivers' HRQOL were assessed using the Zarit Burden Interview and the 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12), respectively. Mediation analysis was used to examine the relationships between variables. Caregivers' mental component summary (MCS) and physical component summary (PCS) scores were regarded as outcome variables, caregivers' subjective burden was considered the mediator, and patients' and caregivers' characteristics were treated as predictors.

RESULTS

Caregivers' subjective burden was negatively related to both PCS and MCS of caregivers' HRQOL, after controlling for the effects of demographic and clinical variables. Moreover, significant associations, mostly indirect via caregivers' subjective burden, existed between caregivers' socio-demographic characteristics, duration of caregiving, patients' frailty status, patients' co-morbidity, and caregivers' HRQOL.

CONCLUSION

Caregivers' subjective burden plays a major and mediating role on influencing caregivers' HRQOL. Our findings may direct future research and promote the implementation of interventions to reduce caregivers' burden and improve caregivers' HRQOL.