BACKGROUND: Informal caregiving is a key part of the US long-term care system. A growing number of older adults with chronic and degenerative illnesses live independently in their communities despite difficulties, and informal caregivers are often their only source of assistance. To support caregivers’ well-being, facilitate continued caregiving, and enable older adults to age in place, it is important to better understand informal caregivers’ experiences. OBJECTIVES: This dissertation aims to better understand the experiences of providing informal care to US older adults by examining caregivers’ perceived burdens and benefits, how formal and informal social support shape caregivers’ experiences, and the implications of these experiences for recipients’ mental health. DATA: I link National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) and National Study of Caregiving (NSOC) data. NHATS is a nationally representative longitudinal study of aging and its social implications. NSOC is its nationally representative companion study, collecting information from persons from whom NHATS older adults indicated receiving assistance. I match NHATS and NSOC respondents to obtain self-reports from both caregiving dyad members. METHODS: I conduct latent class analysis (LCA), LCA regression analysis, and binary logistic regression analysis on a nationally representative sample of informal caregivers to US older adults, matched to their care recipients. I use multiple imputation to address missing data and adjust all models for conceptually relevant caregiver, care recipient, and care arrangement factors. RESULTS: I find five distinct caregiving experience types among US informal caregivers, and I identify demographic and socioeconomic factors associated with experience types. Combinations of the presence or absence, level, and dimension of perceived burden and benefits uniquely characterize each subtype. Further, receiving informal support from family and friends is associated with experience types characterized primarily by benefits, rather than burden. Conversely, caregivers reporting formal assistance use are more likely to have burdensome versus beneficial or ambivalent experiences. Finally, older adults receiving care from persons who perceive caregiving as beneficial are less likely to experience depression three years post-baseline than their counterparts receiving assistance from caregivers reporting only burden. Older adults receiving care from persons reporting benefits, even alongside low to moderate burden, are also less likely to experience anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: This dissertation shows that caregiving experiences can be ambivalent, but may respond to support provision, and that caregivers’ beneficial experiences have positive implications for recipient mental health beyond care provision itself. Given that caregivers who perceive benefits continue on in their roles longer than those perceiving burden, researchers and decision-makers may use this knowledge to facilitate more beneficial caregiving experiences, and to design a long-term care system well-suited to the needs of both caregivers and care recipients.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Sociology
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_8712
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (xi, 277 p.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Caregivers
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Aging
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Teja Pristavec
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
School of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore10001600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.