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标题：Informal Caregiving and Self-Reported Mental and Physical Health: Results From the Gazel Cohort Study
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作者：Jean-François Buyck ; Sophie Bonnaud ; Ariane Boumendil 等
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2011
卷号：101
期号：10
页码：1971-1979
DOI：10.2105/AJPH.2010.300044
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：Objectives. We investigated whether, and under what conditions, informal caregiving is associated with improved self-reported physical and mental health, most notably in terms of cognitive functioning. Methods. We performed a cross-sectional analysis of 2008 data from the Gazel Cohort Study, which involved 10 687 men and women aged 54 to 70 years. Multivariate linear and logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations between self-reported health and caregiving status and burden. Results. Regular caregivers with the highest burden scores reported significantly worse health status than did noncaregivers for almost all of the physical and mental outcomes evaluated after adjustment for potential confounding factors. In particular, they reported more cognitive complaints (odds ratio [OR] = 1.44; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.21, 1.73). Conversely, caregivers with the lowest burden scores reported better perceived health status, less physical and mental tiredness, and fewer depressive symptoms (OR = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.37, 0.68) than did noncaregivers; however, they did not report decreases in cognitive difficulties (OR = 0.98; 95% CI = 0.81, 1.18). Conclusions. Our findings support the hypothesis that caregiving can have positive effects on health, provided that caregiving activities themselves are not too heavy a burden. The past few decades have been marked by substantial improvements in disability-free life expectancy across most developed countries.¹ Yet, management of the dependent population has become an increasing matter of concern for policymakers given the speed and magnitude of population aging in these societies. In 2000 in France, the number of dependent individuals aged 60 years or older was estimated to be around 800 000, and worst-case scenarios predict that this population will increase by 80% by the end of the 2030s.² Informal caregivers of dependent elderly individuals will thus assume a role of growing importance, whether in terms of quantity and quality of care provided or in terms of economic implications for health systems with tight resources. A growing literature is focusing on the repercussions of caregivers’ activities on their mental and physical health. Most studies indicate that caregivers experience adverse consequences linked to the chronic stress and strain induced by continual or intense care tasks, generically referred to as “caregiver burden.”^{3 – 6} A few studies have also enlightened the possible positive repercussions of caregiving, mostly in connection with the feelings of personal fulfillment and satisfaction resulting from providing assistance.^{3 , 7 , 8} Moreover, recent studies have emphasized the beneficial influence on health of increases in physical activity resulting from care tasks, notably in terms of mortality.^{9 , 10} These diverse results stress the importance of considering caregivers as a multifaceted population with respect to the ways in which they cope emotionally, but also physically, with a dependent elderly person. We investigated whether, and under what conditions, caregiving is associated with better self-reported physical and mental health, notably in terms of cognitive functioning. To our knowledge, no study has thus far evaluated these associations in a large population with a validated assessment tool that categorizes caregivers according to amount of perceived burden. We used 2008 data from the French Gazel Cohort Study to detail cross-sectional relationships.