Tamiya, N.

Objectives: We aimed to describe the characteristics of caregivers with cancer compared to those without and analyze the association between having cancer and caregivers’ psychological distress in Japan. Methods: We used data from the Japanese Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions in 2010, 2013, and 2016. The participants were 5258 family caregivers aged ≥40 years, caring for only one family member whose information in the dataset was available for all the covariates included in the model.

Highlights

• We determined the relationship between long hours of care and the assistance in each activity of daily living (ADL) element.

• The assistance in wiping of the body, dressing and toileting were significantly associated with longer hours of care .

• To support caregivers effectively, it is important to consider the kinds of ADL elements of the care recipients.

We evaluate a spillover effect of the Japanese public long-term care insurance (LTCI) as a policy to stimulate family caregivers’ labor force participation. Using nationally representative data from 1995 to 2013, we apply difference-in-difference propensity score matching to investigate the spillover effect in two periods: before and after the introduction of the LTCI in 2000 and before and after its major amendment in 2006.