Older caregivers and care recipients in Europe: a cluster analysis according to health and social outcomes.

BACKGROUND

The deficit of long-term care workers has intensified reliance on informal care, often provided by older adults, reflecting the demographic changes taking place in Europe. Both caregivers and care recipients in this context tend to share a deterioration in their health, well-being, functional limitations and increased social isolation. This study aims to identify and characterize older caregivers and care recipients in Europe according to their quality of life (QoL), health and loneliness.

METHODS

Wave 8 (2019–2020) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) provided data of a sample of people aged 50 and over from 26 countries. Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and a cluster analysis (k-means) were applied to classify people according to QoL (CASP-12), life satisfaction, self-perceived health, loneliness (R-UCLA), depression (EURO-D), memory test and limitation in activities of daily living (ADLs). Patterns were characterized according to sociodemographic characteristics and caregiving status. Multinomial regression was used to assess the association between caregiving status and cluster membership.

RESULTS

Total sample was 41,999 individuals, with 57.2% women and a mean age of 71 years. The cluster analysis identified three profiles, with good (42.6%), moderate (50.6%) and poor health (6.8%). The poor health cluster was characterized by having a higher mean age (75.8 years), a higher percentage of women (66.6%), care recipients (42.7%) and live-in caregivers (6.3%), mainly, from Eastern and Southern European countries, such as Bulgaria and Cyprus.

CONCLUSION

Measures of QoL, physical and mental health and loneliness classify more than half of the sample in the moderate and poor health groups in Europe. Health-related profiles of older adults vary significantly by caregiving status and highlight the heterogeneity of ageing across Europe. These results are useful to identify the most vulnerable population and help health and social care interventions focused on improving the living conditions of both older caregivers and care recipients.