Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2002 Aug;92(8):1305-11.
doi: 10.2105/ajph.92.8.1305.

Reverberations of family illness: a longitudinal assessment of informal caregiving and mental health status in the Nurses' Health Study

Carolyn C Cannuscio  1 , Camara Jones, Ichiro Kawachi, Graham A Colditz, Lisa Berkman, Eric Rimm
Affiliations

Reverberations of family illness: a longitudinal assessment of informal caregiving and mental health status in the Nurses' Health Study

Carolyn C Cannuscio et al. Am J Public Health. 2002 Aug.

Abstract

Objectives: . This study examined the association between caregiving for disabled or ill family members, estimated to occur in more than 22 million US households, and change in mental health.

Methods: We assessed 4-year change in mental health among 37 742 Nurses' Health Study participants with the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36.

Results: Women who provided 36 or more weekly hours of care to a disabled spouse were almost 6 times more likely than noncaregivers to experience depressive or anxious symptoms (multivariate odds ratio [OR] = 5.6; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.8, 8.3). Caring for a disabled or ill parent (>or= 36 weekly hours) was associated with a less dramatic elevation in depressive or anxious symptoms (multivariate OR = 2.0; 95% CI = 0.9, 4.3).

Conclusions: In this population, caregiving was associated with increased risk of depressive or anxious symptoms.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Abrams WB, Beers MH, Berkow R, Fletcher AJ, eds. The Merck Manual of Geriatrics. Whitehouse Station, NJ: Merck Research Laboratories; 1995.
    1. National Alliance for Caregiving and the American Association of Retired Persons. Family Caregiving in the US: Findings From a National Survey. Final Report. Bethesda, Md: National Alliance for Caregiving; 1997.
    1. Harrington C, Cassel C, Estes CL, Wollhandler S, Himmelstein DU. A national long term care program for the United States: a caring vision. The Working Group on Long-Term Care Program Design, Physicians for a National Health Program. JAMA. 1991;266:3023–3029. - PubMed
    1. Moen P, Robison J, Fields V. Women’s work and caregiving roles: a life course approach. J Gerontol. 1994;49:S176–S186. - PubMed
    1. Abel EK. “Man, woman, and chore boy”: transformations in the antagonistic demands of work and care on women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Milbank Q. 1995;73:187–211. - PubMed

Publication types