Caregivers’ Absenteeism and Its Association With Health Shocks and Functional Impairment Among Persons With Severe Dementia

ABSTRACT

Adult child caregivers of persons with severe dementia (PWSDs) experience absenteeism due to caregiving. We quantified employed adult child caregivers’ absenteeism; its association with PWSDs’ functional impairment and health shocks; and characteristics of caregivers not experiencing absenteeism in the presence of PWSDs’ health shocks and high functional impairment. We used a prospective cohort of 111 employed adult child caregivers of community-dwelling PWSDs in Singapore surveyed every 4 months for 1 year. We calculated absenteeism days due to caregiving and the corresponding absenteeism cost. Findings showed that 43% of the caregivers experienced absenteeism due to caregiving at least once during 1 year. On average, in a month, caregivers experienced 2.3 (SD = 5.9) absenteeism days and S$758 (SD = 2120) absenteeism cost. Those caring for PWSDs with high functional impairment experienced an additional 2.5 absenteeism days and S$788 absenteeism cost versus caregivers of PWSDs with low functional impairment. Caregivers whose PWSDs experienced a health shock experienced an additional 1.8 absenteeism days and S$772 absenteeism cost versus caregivers of PWSDs without a health shock. Co-residence with PWSDs worsened the impact of PSWDs’ high functional impairment on caregivers absenteeism. Caregivers not co-residing with PWSDs and not using a maladaptive coping style were less likely to experience absenteeism when caring for PWSDs with a health shock. Results suggest a need to support caregivers of PWSDs to better cope with their caregiving in order to mitigate caregivers’ absenteeism.

KEYWORDS:

• Absenteeism
• activities of daily living
• family caregiver
• health shocks
• Singapore

Key points

• Adult caregivers of persons living with severe dementia incur absenteeism due to caregiving

• Absenteeism rates are higher if care recipients experience health shocks and/or have higher levels of functional impairment

• Co-residing and high-contributing caregivers are at a higher risk for experiencing absenteeism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

C. Malhotra and V.A. Huynh contributed to the study conceptualization, data analysis, and interpretation of the results. C. Malhotra, V.A. Huynh, T. Østbye, and R. Malhotra contributed to the writing and revising of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the identity of research participants, but they are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08959420.2023.2196232

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Health, Singapore [NMRC/HSRG/0081/2017, COVID19TUG21-0031] and the Lien Centre for Palliative Care [LCPC-IN21-0001].