Quality of life outcomes for informal carers of long-term care service users in Austria, England and Finland.

Autor: Linnosmaa I; Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Helsinki, Finland. ismo.linnosmaa@uef.fi.; Department of Health and Social Management, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland. ismo.linnosmaa@uef.fi., Nguyen L; Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Helsinki, Finland., Jokimäki H; Statistics Finland, Helsinki, Finland., Saloniki EC; Department of Primary Care and Population Health, University College London, London, UK.; NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North Thames, London, UK., Malley J; London School of Economics and Political Science, Care Policy and Evaluation Centre, London, UK., Trukeschitz B; WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Research Institute for Economics of Aging, Vienna, Austria., Hajji A; WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Research Institute for Economics of Aging, Vienna, Austria., Forder J; Personal Social Services Research Unit, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Quality of life research : an international journal of quality of life aspects of treatment, care and rehabilitation [Qual Life Res] 2024 Sep; Vol. 33 (9), pp. 2477-2488. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jun 22.
DOI: 10.1007/s11136-024-03711-2
Abstrakt: Purpose: The provision and funding of long-term care (LTC) for older people varies between European countries. Despite differences, there is limited information about the comparative performance of LTC systems in Europe. In this study, we compared quality of life (QoL) of informal carers of home care service users in Austria, England and Finland.
Methods: Informal carers were surveyed in Austria, England and Finland. The study data (n = 835) contained information on social care-related quality of life (SCRQoL) associated with the ASCOT-Carer measure, and characteristics of carers and care recipients from each country. We applied risk-adjustment methods using a fractional regression model to produce risk-adjusted SCRQoL scores for the comparative analysis. In a sensitivity analysis, we applied multiple imputation to missing data to validate our findings.
Results: We found that the mean values of the risk-adjusted SCRQoL of informal carers in England were 1.4-2.9% and 0.3-0.5% higher than in Finland and Austria, and the mean values of the risk-adjusted SCRQoL of carers in Austria were 0.8-2.7% higher than in Finland. Differences in the mean values of the country-specific risk-adjusted SCRQoL scores were small and statistically non-significant. English informal carers were less healthy and co-resided with care resipients more often than carers in Austria or Finland.
Conclusion: Small differences between the risk-adjusted SCRQoL scores between Austria, England and Finland are consistent with the observation that the countries provide different types of support for informal carers. Our results help local and national decision-makers in these countries to benchmark their informal care support systems.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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