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. 2018 Dec;87(4):347-376.
doi: 10.1177/0091415017752936. Epub 2018 Jan 18.

The Complexities of Family Caregiving at Work: A Mixed-Methods Study

Joseph E Gaugler  1 , Deborah L Pestka  1 , Heather Davila  1 , Rebecca Sales  2 , Greg Owen  2 , Sarah A Baumgartner  3 , Rocky Shook  3 , Jane Cunningham  2 , Maureen Kenney  2
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The Complexities of Family Caregiving at Work: A Mixed-Methods Study

Joseph E Gaugler et al. Int J Aging Hum Dev. 2018 Dec.

Abstract

The current project examined the impact of caregiving and caregiving-work conflict on employees' well-being. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design (QUAN→qual) was utilized, and a total of 880 employees from a large health-care plan employer completed an online survey. Forty-five caregivers who completed the survey also participated in one of the five focus groups held 1 to 2 months later. Employed caregivers were significantly ( p < .05) more likely to indicate poorer physical and mental health than noncaregivers; among caregivers ( n = 370), caregiving-work conflict emerged as the most significant predictor of well-being and fully mediated the empirical relationship between burden and well-being. The focus group findings complemented the quantitative results; many of the challenges employed caregivers experience stem from their ability or inability to effectively balance their employment and caregiving roles. The results suggest the need to focus on caregiving-work conflict when constructing new or translating existing evidence-based caregiver interventions.

Keywords: caregiving; employment; family; work.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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