Characteristics of caregiving intensity among Mexican American elder caregivers

Current literature reviews of elder caregiving have highlighted the need to better understand the intensity of informal caregiving in diverse populations. Intensity of care is multi-dimensional, however, it is typically measured by hours of care and the number of ADL/IADL supports provided. Additional elements of caregiving, such as number of care recipient illnesses, difficulty of specific caregiving tasks, and emotional drain, can provide valuable insight into intensity of care. We administered a survey to 132 female caregivers of Mexican descent, which asked questions investigating these additional elements of caregiving intensity. The most common illnesses among care recipients were arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Forms of support most frequently attributed to emotional drain were providing emotional support, managing medications, bathing, and helping the care recipient walk. Caregivers ranked forms of support according to their perceived level of difficulty and a difficulty of caregiving tasks score was calculated for each caregiver. We used regression models to determine relations between the number of family member illnesses, difficulty of tasks, and overall emotional drain. Results from a loglinear regression (assuming a negative binomial distribution) indicated difficulty of caregiving tasks was significantly related to increased emotional drain (β= .09, p=.02). In addition, a loglinear regression (assuming a poisson distribution) found that the number of family member illnesses weakly predicted caregiving intensity (β= .02, p=.05).  These findings suggest that difficulty of care provided has negative emotional effects among Latina caregivers and informs our understanding of the multidimensionality of caregiving intensity in this population.