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Long-term Care Provision and the Well-Being of Spousal Caregivers: An Analysis of 138 European Regions

Objectives: The individual burden of caring for one's relatives not only depends on care characteristics but is also related to contextual factors. The objective of this study is to determine whether regional formal long-term care provision is linked to the well-being of spousal caregivers introducing the concept of "control" as central pathway to explain this link.; Method: We applied multilevel analysis using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) from over 29,000 Europeans and 1,800 spousal caregivers located in 138 regions in 11 countries to analyze the effects of regional contexts on caregiver well-being. The provision of formal care in a region was measured by the number of long-term care beds in nursing and residential homes among the older population.; Results: We found that spousal caregivers' well-being, measured in terms of life satisfaction, loneliness, and depression, was positively linked to the regional availability of formal care, which is partly due to higher perceived control in regions with more formal care provision.; Discussion: Our results suggest that formal care supply is essential not only for care recipients but also for caregivers: perceived alternatives to the private care arrangement go along with greater well-being of informal caregivers.

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Key Information

Type of Reference
Jour
Type of Work
Journal article
Publisher
Oxford university press
ISBN/ISSN
1758-5368
Publication Year
2018
Issue Number
4
Journal Titles
The Journals Of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences And Social Sciences
Volume Number
73
Start Page
e24
End Page
e34