ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1584632
This article is part of the Research TopicMental Health Dynamics for Vulnerable Populations in the Digital Era: Opportunities and ChallengesView all articles
Exploring the experience of informal caregivers of dependent elderly people with the well-being valuation method
Provisionally accepted
- 1East China Normal University, Shanghai, Shanghai Municipality, China
- 2Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
- 3East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, Shanghai, China
- 4Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
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Although informal caregivers are the primary providers of long-term care for the elderly globally, research on the impact of caregiving experiences on the well-being of caregivers is relatively limited. This study conducted interviews with 297 family informal caregivers in Shanghai, measured their subjective burdens, and applied the well-being valuation method to calculate the monetary value of the welfare changes resulting from caregiving burdens. According to the findings, sub-dimensions of the Chinese version of the Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA) of disrupted schedule, lack of family support, and self-esteem were significantly related to caregivers' wellbeing. For caregivers with average income and average CRA scores, the impact of caregiving experiences on their well-being level was equivalent to a monthly income reduction of 226.69 RMB (4.7% of their monthly income). This paper provides a new and useful perspective for the evaluation of long-term care policies, and suggests prioritizing the alleviation of caregivers' schedule and social relationship burdens, and understanding the 'intrinsic coping mechanisms' of caregiving responses from an economic perspective.
Keywords: Informal care, Informal caregivers, Subjective well-being, Well-being valuation method, Informal caregiver burden
Received: 27 Feb 2025; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lyu, Yuan, Xu and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yanping Xu, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, Shanghai, China
Wenwei Liu, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China
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