The impact on employees of providing informal caregiving for someone with dementia

Abstract

Objective: To determine if employees who are concurrently providing informal caregiving for a person with dementia (DCG) experience greater challenges than employees providing informal caregiving to older adults without dementia (ND CG).

Method: From a sample of employee respondents to a national Canadian survey three groups were studied: ND CG, and two subgroups of DCGs defined by the level of demand posed by the care recipient (CR) - low dementia demand (LDD) and moderate/high dementia demand (HDD). The dependent variables were CGs' job profile, health/well-being, nature of caregiving and work-caregiving balance and CRs' health demands. We used general linear models for analysis.

Results: 1839 employee respondents were informal caregivers for an older adult, of whom 666 were DCGs. HDD CGs (n = 363) had significantly greater role demands and challenges on measures of perceived stress, depressed mood, burden, self-efficacy, mastery, control, absenteeism, job-caregiving conflict and role overload than LDD (n = 303) and ND CGs (n = 1173). LDD and ND CGs did not differ on these measures.

Conclusion: Employees concurrently caring informally for persons with dementia who pose moderate to high care demands experience significantly more difficulties than employees providing LDD or ND informal care for an older adult. These results may guide employers and clinicians in identifying and responding to CG employees who need enhanced support both in the workplace and the community to maintain their work productivity.

Keywords: Dementia; absenteeism; burden; employee; informal caregivers; job–caregiving conflict; role overload; stress; working caregiver.