Informal care at home and in residential care: The influence on caregivers' burden and happiness

While quite a lot of research focuses on caregiving for community-dwelling older adults, little is known about informal care in residential care. This study investigates the positive and negative aspects of caregiving in two long-term settings using the data from 5,197 Dutch dyads of caregivers and their older care receivers. Preliminary analyses have shown that caregivers at home deliver significantly more hours of care (objective burden) than caregivers caring for a care receiver in a residential care facility (15.3 hours vs. 6.8 hours, p=0.000). Both groups do not differ significantly in their subjective burden (42.5 vs. 40.8, p=0.062, theoretical range 0-100). However, caregivers' at home experience significantly lower happiness (69.6 vs. 73.3, p=0.000, theoretical range 0-100) and quality of life (QoL; 78.4 vs. 81.7, p=0.000, theoretical range 0-100) than caregivers in residential care. Multivariate analyses showed that burden, happiness and QoL were associated with various caregiver and care receiver characteristics.