Zarzycki, Mikołaj and Vilchinsky, Noa and Bei, Eva and Ferraris, Giulia and Seddon, Diane and Morrison, Val (2024) Cross-country variations in the caregiver role: evidence from the ENTWINE-iCohort study. BMC Public Health. ISSN 1471-2458
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Abstract
Background: Globally, economically developed countries face similar ageing demographics and the challenge of a ‘care gap’, yet they vary due to different care and formal support systems, and different cultural and societal norms around illness and care. The aim of this exploratory study was to examine cross-country variations in caregiver motivations, willingness, values, meaning in life, illness beliefs, and experiences of wellbeing, gain, health-related quality of life, burden and depression, across 6 European countries and Israel. Cross-country differences in the above-mentioned informal caregiver experiences are rarely described.
Methods: An online survey (ENTWINE-iCohort) was conducted using validated measures wherever possible. This paper utilises data from 879 caregivers and seven countries (Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the UK, and Israel).
Results: No consistent finding supporting the concurrent relationship between caregiver support policies/country culture and caregiver motivations/willingness was found. Caregivers in countries typically characterised by individualist cultures reported lower familism, higher self-enhancement values, and greater perceived illness threat compared to more collectivist countries. Search for meaning was higher in poorer countries than in wealthier countries. Higher negative caregiver experiences (e.g., burden) and lower positive experiences (e.g., wellbeing) were generally observed in countries with underdeveloped caregiver support as compared to countries with more developed formal support systems.
Conclusions: Cross-country variations can be explained to varying degrees by national policies around care (or their absence) and country cultural contexts. The results emphasise the importance of formal support services for achieving positive caregiver experiences, and help inform the development of policies and measures to support caregivers in Europe and Israel.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information and Comments: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. |
| Keywords: | informal caregiving; cross-country analysis; culture; society; caregiver values; meaning in life; illness beliefs; motivations and willingness to care; caregiver outcomes |
| Faculty / Department: | Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > School of Psychology |
| Depositing User: | Mikolaj Zarzycki |
| Date Deposited: | 02 Apr 2024 10:39 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Apr 2024 10:39 |
| URI: | https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4178 |
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