Informal caregiver quality of life: Psychosocial and behavioral correlates of quality of life among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and heterosexual caregivers in the Women's Health Initiative.

BACKGROUND

Research has established that caregiving can have both positive and deleterious effects on caregivers' quality of life; caregivers are defined as informal caregivers caring for sick, limited, or frail family members/friends. Yet, the quality of life of female-identified caregivers who are lesbian, gay, and/or bisexual (LGB) is a relatively understudied area. Further, there is extremely limited evidence concerning the psychosocial and health behavior correlates of quality of life among LGB caregivers. Our project addresses this gap.

METHODS

Data from the Women's Health Initiative were used for this project, specifically baseline data from clinical trials and observational studies. The total caregiver sample size was 15,034; lesbian/gay (LG) caregivers n = 305; bisexual (B) caregivers n = 243, and heterosexual caregivers n = 14,486. Psychosocial measures and health behaviors were regressed on three quality of life outcomes using hierarchical, three-block, linear regressions stratified by sexual orientation.

RESULTS

For LG and B caregivers, psychosocial characteristics, but not health behaviors, were strongly and consistently associated with all three measures of quality of life. On average, for LG and B caregivers, social function, social support, and optimism were the most important to quality of life. Social strain was important to quality of life for LG but not B caregivers. Among heterosexual caregivers, health behaviors had stronger and more consistent associations across all measures of quality of life than those observed among LG and B caregivers.

CONCLUSION

Based on the associations identified and reported here, it may be possible that interventions that enhance social function, social support, and optimism, while increasing coping skills for social strain, may have better odds for improving the quality of life of LGB caregivers than interventions that focus on other psychosocial characteristics or health behaviors.