Caring Situation, Health, Self-efficacy, and Stress in Young Informal Carers of Family and Friends with Mental Illness in Sweden

Abstract

This study compared the caring situation, health, self-efficacy, and stress of young (16–25) informal carers (YICs) supporting a family member with mental illness with that of YICs supporting a friend. A sample of 225 carers, assigned to a family group (n = 97) or a friend group (n = 128) completed the questionnaire. It was found that the family group experiences a lower level of support and friends experienced a lower positive value of caring. No other differences in health, general self-efficacy and stress were found. YICs endure different social situations, which is why further study of the needs of YICs, especially those supporting friends, is urgently needed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Kjell Pettersson, university lecturer in the Department of Economics at Gothenburg University for his support with statistics. We also thank Mikael Elf of the Psychology Department at Gothenburg University for his help with data collection.

FUNDING

We would like to thank The Vårdal Institute, The Swedish Institute for Health Science, Lund and Gothenburg, Sweden and Vinnvård for financing the research project.

Declaration of Interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.