Care Demands and Well-Being of Primary and Secondary Non-Spousal Caregivers of Aging Adults

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Compare care demands, strain, and health across 912 primary and secondary caregivers of parents, other family, and friends aged 50 and older.

Methods

Data came from the nationally representative Caregiving in the U.S. 2015 data set. Two by three factorial ANOVAs and binary logistic regression examined the effects of primary caregiver status and relationship type on care demands and well-being.

Results

Primary caregivers provided more hours of care for a longer duration and were more likely to report financial stress, and that caregiving made their health worse. Primary caregivers did not differ from secondary caregivers in emotional stress, and physical strain was comparable in primary and secondary caregivers of parents and other family. Caregivers of parents generally reported the highest levels of demands and stress/strain. Controlling for amount of care provided attenuated some of these differences.

Conclusions

Secondary caregivers provide less care but report emotional stress comparable to primary caregivers. Primary caregivers of friends provide high levels of assistance that may increase their physical strain.

Clinical Implications

Caregiver research and intervention should include greater attention to needs of secondary caregivers, and caregivers of friends, and ways to strengthen their potentially critical roles.

KEYWORDS:

• Caregiving
• secondary caregivers
• primary caregivers
• caregiver well-being
• friend caregivers
• caregiver stress

Clinical implications

• Secondary caregivers may experience significant emotional stress in their role and should not be ignored in basic and applied research by an exclusive focus on primary caregivers.

• Friends play diverse roles in informal care, but they might not identify as caregivers; clinicians should query about the types and level of assistance their clients might be providing to a friend or neighbor and suggest potential resources for supports and services.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The National Alliance for Caregiving & American Association of Retired People Caregiving in the U.S. 2015 dataset is available for public use and can be downloaded at http://www.caregiving.org/research/open-data/