Caregiving Factors as Predictors of Care Recipient Mortality

OBJECTIVE

Assess a conceptual model linking caregiving factors to care recipient mortality in a large representative sample of older adults with disability.

DESIGN

Descriptive longitudinal study with 5-year mortality follow-up among older adults with disability. Baseline in person and telephone interviews/assessments of older adults with disability and their family caregivers carried out in 2011.

SETTING

Representative samples of older US population and their family caregivers.

PARTICIPANTS

US representative samples of older adults with disability aged 65 and over (National Health and Aging Study) and their family caregivers (National Study of Caregiving; www.nhats.org; N = 1,262).

MEASUREMENT

Controlling for known risk factors for mortality in older adults, including age, gender, race, education, socioeconomic status, disability, and cognitive status, we assess the role of three caregiving factors (depression, anxiety, and burden) and three mediating factors (care recipient depression, anxiety, and unmet needs for care) as predictors of care recipient mortality.

RESULTS

Caregiver burden, care recipient depression, and care recipient unmet needs are independent predictors of care recipient mortality.

CONCLUSION

Caregiving factors may play an important role in the survival of their care recipients. This is a relatively unexplored research area that calls for fine-grained studies capturing caregiver-care recipient health-related interactions over time.