Promoting Mental Health and Well-Being Among Adolescent Young Carers in Europe: A Cross-National Randomized Controlled Trial Study.

Background/objectives: This cross-national study focuses on adolescents who provide care and support to family members or significant others. Current evidence regarding their mental health and solutions to strengthen it is limited and mostly available in a few countries. The aim of this study is to evaluate the results of a primary prevention intervention for improving the mental health and well-being of adolescent young carers (AYCs) aged 15-17 years in six European countries.

The Economic Costs of Informal Care: Estimates from a National Cross-Sectional Survey in The Netherlands.

Faced with an unprecedented demand for long-term care, European health care systems are moving towards mixed care models, where the welfare state and informal caregivers share care responsibilities. While informal care is often viewed as a means of alleviating pressure on public care, it comes with significant economic costs for caregivers, their employers, and society at large. This study uses nationally representative data to estimate the total direct (informal care time and out-of-pocket costs) and indirect (productivity) economic costs of informal care in the Netherlands in 2019.

[The involvement of older adults in the residential care: dilemmas, pitfalls and potentials].

In the residential care sector we have witnessed throughout the previous decades a development from a rather paternalistic approach towards a more democratic way of care giving. In many care organizations, however, residents are still rarely involved in the daily routine. In a participatory study on a somatic care unit in the Netherlands, we examined the challenges around the involvement of residents in the care residence.

Research and Innovation for and with Adolescent Young Carers to Influence Policy and Practice-The European Union Funded "ME-WE" Project.

Young carers are children and adolescents who provide care to other family members or friends, taking over responsibilities that are usually associated with adulthood. There is emerging but still scarce knowledge worldwide about the phenomenon of young carers and the impact of a caring role on their health, social and personal development spheres. This paper provides an overview of the main results from the ME-WE project, which is the first European research and innovation project dedicated to adolescent young carers (AYCs) (15-17 years).

Testing the informal care model: intrapersonal change in care provision intensity during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Informal care, meaning taking health-related care of people in their own social network, is a topic that gets more and more attention in social science research because the pressure on people to provide informal care is rising due to ageing societies and policy changes. The developed by Broese van Groenou and de Boer (Eur J Ageing 13(3):271-279, 2016) provides a theoretical foundation to understand under what conditions a person provides informal care. We test this theoretical model by applying it to intrapersonal changes in informal care provision during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the Netherlands in Spring 2020.

Quality of Life of Schoolchildren Living with a Long-Term Sick Parent: The Role of Tasks at Home, Life Circumstances and Social Support.

This study investigates whether there are differences in quality of life-i.e., psychosomatic complaints and life satisfaction-between schoolchildren with and without a chronically ill or disabled parent at home.

Older Adults' Engagement in Residential Care: Pitfalls, Potentials, and the Role of ICTs.

Over the previous years, the residential care sector has gone through a transition from a rather paternalistic approach towards a more democratic way of caregiving. Nevertheless, many care organizations still find it challenging to engage their residents in the process of care. In this study, we investigated the challenges regarding the engagement of older adults in residential care.

Growing up with a Chronically Ill Family Member-The Impact on and Support Needs of Young Adult Carers: A Scoping Review.

This scoping review provides an overview of the impact of growing up with a chronically ill family member on young adults (18-25 years old), and their specific needs. Young adults represent an important life stage involving a transition to adulthood, during which individuals' family situations can affect their future. We searched relevant studies following the guideline of Arskey and O'Mailley's methodological framework and the PRISMA statement guidelines for scoping reviews in PubMed, PsychInfo and reference lists to identify articles for inclusion.

Determinants of informal care-giving in various social relationships in the Netherlands.

This study investigates determinants for offering help to family members, neighbours and friends, based on the Informal Care Model. We do so in pooled representative data for the Netherlands collected in 2014 and 2016 (persons >17 years, n = 13,165). One-third provides informal care to a person with health problems or impairments: partners (4%, n = 671), parents or children (16%, n = 2,381), distant relatives (6%, n = 858), friends or neighbours (6%, n = 839).

[ICT as an instrument for social and emotional ageing. A qualitative study with older adults with cognitive impairments].

Inspired by theories from the field of social and emotional aging, we studied the use of ICTs by older adults with cognitive impairments. By means of qualitative interviews (N=30) with older adults with cognitive impairments and their relatives, we got a detailed picture of the role of ICTs in their daily lives.First, our data showed that older adults with cognitive impairments used ICTs to enhance their social and emotional wellbeing.

Home care for terminally ill patients: the experiences of family caregivers with and without paid work.

Objectives: To facilitate care at the end of life at home, support from family caregivers is crucial. A substantial number of these family caregivers also work. Work in relation to care for terminally ill patients has received limited attention.

Informal caregivers' judgements on sharing care with home care professionals from an intersectional perspective: the influence of personal and situational characteristics.

The European policy emphasis on providing informal care at home causes caregivers and home care professionals having more contact with each other, which makes it important for them to find satisfying ways to share care. Findings from the literature show that sharing care between caregivers and professionals can be improved. This study therefore examines to what degree and why caregivers' judgements on sharing care with home care professionals vary.

How Is End-of-Life Care With and Without Dementia Associated With Informal Caregivers' Outcomes?

Background: Palliative care for older people with life-limiting diseases often involves informal caregivers, but the palliative care literature seldom focuses on the negative and positive aspects of informal caregiving.

Objective: To assess the association of proximity to end of life (EOL) and dementia caregiving with informal caregivers' burden of care and positive experiences and explain differences in outcomes.

Design: Data on 1267 informal caregivers of community-dwelling older people were selected from a nationally representative cross-sectional survey and analyzed using analysis of variance and multivariable regression analyses.

Male and Female Partner-Caregivers' Burden: Does It Get Worse Over Time?

Background And Objectives: The general view is that partner-caregiver burden increases over time but findings are inconsistent. Moreover, the pathways underlying caregiver burden may differ between men and women. This study examines to what degree and why partner-caregiver burden changes over time.

Informal caregivers' views on the division of responsibilities between themselves and professionals: A scoping review.

This scoping review focuses on the views of informal caregivers regarding the division of care responsibilities between citizens, governments and professionals and the question of to what extent professionals take these views into account during collaboration with them. In Europe, the normative discourse on informal care has changed. Retreating governments and decreasing residential care increase the need to enhance the collaboration between informal caregivers and professionals.

[Symposium The future of informal care].

Due to the reform of long term care in 2015, there is growing concern about whether groups at risk receive the care they need. People in need of care have to rely more on help from their social network. The increased need for informal care requires resilience and organizational skills of families, but also of volunteers, professionals and employers.

Providing informal care in a changing society.

The ageing of society is leading to significant reforms in long-term care policy and systems in many European countries. The cutbacks in professional care are increasing demand for informal care considerably, from both kin and non-kin. At the same time, demographic and societal developments such as changing family structures and later retirement may limit the supply of informal care.

Individual determinants of task division in older adults' mixed care networks.

Older adults in need of long-term care often receive help from both informal and formal caregivers. The division of tasks between these different types of caregivers may vary among such mixed care networks. Traditional models of task division suggest that formal and informal caregivers may either supplement each other or specialise in the care activities performed.

Positive and negative evaluation of caregiving among three different types of informal care relationships.

Based on the caregiver stress model, we examined how care demands, caregiver motivation, coping style and external support are associated with positive evaluation and caregiver burden among spousal, adult child and other types of care relations. Data from a sample of Dutch informal caregivers of 1,685 older persons (55 and older) were analyzed employing multivariate linear regression analyses for each of the care relationship types. Spouses ( = 206) report high positive evaluation and high burden, adult children ( = 1,093) report low positive evaluation, and other caregivers ( = 386) report high positive evaluation and a low burden.

Are informal caregivers less happy than noncaregivers? Happiness and the intensity of caregiving in combination with paid and voluntary work.

Informal caregivers are one of the pillars of home health care. In the Netherlands, the free help they provide to sick or disabled family members, acquaintances or friends exceeds the number of hours of home care provided by professionals. While the government welcomes their contribution, there is concern about the potential burden their work imposes on them.

Lack of uniform diagnostic criteria for cervical radiculopathy in conservative intervention studies: a systematic review.

Purpose: Cervical radiculopathy (CR) is a common diagnosis. It is unclear if intervention studies use uniform definitions and criteria for patient selection. Our objective was to assess the uniformity of diagnostic criteria and definitions used in intervention studies to select patients with CR.

More family responsibility, more informal care? The effect of motivation on the giving of informal care by people aged over 50 in the Netherlands compared to other European countries.

Against the backdrop of ongoing population ageing, informal care occupies an important place on European political agendas. This article discusses informal caregiving by middle aged and older persons in the Netherlands and other European countries, with particular emphasis on the role played by motives. The data are drawn from SHARE.

The impact of informal care-giving networks on adult children's care-giver burden.

Previous research on the care-giver burden experienced by adult children has typically focused on the adult child and parent dyad. This study uses information on multiple informal care-givers and examines how characteristics of the informal care-giving network affect the adult child's care-giver burden. In 2007, 602 Dutch care-givers who were assisting their older parents reported on parental and personal characteristics, care activities, experienced burden and characteristics of other informal care-givers.