Health status of people who have provided informal care or support to an adult with chronic disease in the last 5 years: results from a population-based cross-sectional survey in South Australia.

Conclusions Providing care or support in the last 5 years is independently associated with poorer health status, but not with the magnitude found in studies of current carers. Future research should explore health status recovery after completion of the caring role, and investigate whether relationships between health and socioeconomic status differ for carers versus non-carers.What is known about the topic? Population-based survey studies in Australia and overseas have consistently found that informal carers have worse health status than non-carers.What does this paper add? Including recent as well as current carers in a population-based sample was associated with less effect on health status compared with studies focused on current carers only. This finding is consistent with the possibility that health status recovers during the 5 years after caring.What are the implications for practitioners? Support for Australian carers is warranted to ensure their continuing contributions to society and return to productivity after their caring role is completed. PMID: 29898812 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Australian Health Review - Category: Hospital Management Authors: Tags: Aust Health Rev Source Type: research