Hansen, Thomas;
Hynek, Kamila;
McMunn, Anne;
Nes, Ragnhild Bang;
Skirbekk, Vegard;
Vollrath, Margarethe E;
Methi, Fredrik;
(2023)
Emerging costs in a “hidden” workforce: The longitudinal psychosocial effects of caregiving during the COVID‐19 pandemic among Norwegian adults.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
10.1111/sjop.12986.
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Abstract
During COVID‐19 many informal caregivers experienced increased caregiving load while access to formal and informal support systems and coping resources decreased. Little is known about the psychosocial costs of these challenges for an essential yet vulnerable and “hidden” frontline workforce. This study explores and compares changes in psychosocial well‐being (psychological well‐being, psychological ill‐being, and loneliness) before and across up to three stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic among caregivers and non‐caregivers. We also examine predictors of psychosocial well‐being among caregivers during the peak of the pandemic. We use longitudinal data collected online in the Norwegian Counties Public Health Survey (age: 18–92) in four counties and up to four data points (n = 14,881). Caregivers are those who provide care unpaid, continuous (≥ monthly across all time points) help to someone with health problems. Findings show that levels of psychosocial well‐being first remained stable but later, during the peak stages of the pandemic, dropped markedly. Caregivers (13–15% of the samples) report lower psychosocial well‐being than non‐caregivers both before and during the pandemic. Caregivers seem especially vulnerable in terms of ill‐being, and during the peak of the pandemic caregivers report higher net levels of worry (OR = 1.22, p < 0.01) and anxiety (OR = 1.23, p < 0.01) than non‐caregivers. As expected, impacts are graver for caregivers who provide more intensive care and those reporting health problems or poor access to social support. Our study findings are valuable information for interventions to support caregivers during this and future pandemics.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Emerging costs in a “hidden” workforce: The longitudinal psychosocial effects of caregiving during the COVID‐19 pandemic among Norwegian adults |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/sjop.12986 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology published by Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, Caregiving, psychosocial well-being, loneliness, Norway, longitudinal analysis |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10182455 |
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