Hallberg, I.

AIM: This paper reports a study to investigate coping strategies and sense of coherence in relation to gender, the extent of care, caregiving activities and health-related quality of life in a population-based sample of caregivers aged 75 and over.

The present study describes and compares quality of life (QoL) and factors which predict QoL among people aged 75 years and over who receive help with activities of daily living (ADLs) from formal and/or informal helpers. The subjects were living at home or in special accommodation in Sweden. A postal questionnaire was sent to a randomly selected and age-stratified sample of 8500 people. The response rate was 52.8% (n = 4337), and 1247 people [mean age (± SD) = 86.4 ± 5.9 years] received help and indicated who helped them with ADLs.

Being a caregiver with responsibility for someone with reduced health compared with not being a caregiver may mean different views of life satisfaction. Knowledge of what leads to reduced life satisfaction in caregivers may be helpful in interventions. Informal caregivers gainfully employed or not, aged 50–89 years, were studied with regard to life satisfaction depending on the extent of caregiving to identify types of social support of value for caregivers.