Health‐related lifestyle of Spanish informal caregivers: Results from two national health surveys

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• Author: Jesús García‐Mayor,Antonio Moreno‐Llamas,Ernesto De la Cruz‐Sánchez
• Date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12689

RESEARCH

Health-related lifestyle of Spanish informal

caregivers: Results from two national health surveys

Jesús García-Mayor|Antonio Moreno-Llamas|

Ernesto De la Cruz-S

anchez

Public Health and Epidemiology Research

Group, San Javier Campus, Universidad de

Murcia, Murcia, Spain

Correspondence

Ernesto De la Cruz-S

anchez, Jesús García-

Mayor and Antonio Moreno-Llamas,

Universidad de Murcia, C/ Santa Alicia,

19, 30720 San Javier, Murcia, San Javier,

Murcia 30720, Spain.

Email: erneslacruz@um.es;jesus.garcia9@um.es;

antonio.moreno13@um.es

Abstract

Objective: We examine the health-related lifestyle behav-

iors of informal Spanish caregivers while controlling for

sociodemographic characteristics.

Background: Informal caregiving is an essential, albeit

invisible, component of any health care delivery system

that results in vast savings for national economies. Never-

theless, it remains unknown whether healthy lifestyle

behaviors and the subsequent well-being of informal care-

givers may compromise their ability to continue providing

their essential service.

Method: We compared the health-related lifestyle behav-

iors between informal caregivers and non-caregivers,

applying generalized estimating equations analysis.

Results: We observed no significant differences in self-

rated health status between caregivers and non-caregivers.

Women and men older than 44 years of age with less than

20 hours of care per week were more likely to eat fruit and

engage in physical activity. Younger women caregivers

(18–44years) with less than 20hours of care per week

were also more physically active. However, younger men

withlessthan20 hoursofcareperweeksmokedmore,

and women were more likely to use alcohol. No differences

were observed between non-caregivers and caregivers with

20 or more of care per week.

Conclusions: Informal caregiving affects women and men

equally, being hours of care per week a determinant of

caregiver/non-caregiver differences on diet, physical activ-

ity, smoking, and drinking.

Implications: The results from these nationally representa-

tive data suggest both a healthy and unhealthy lifestyle

caregiver effect for both women and men. This effect

Received: 8 July 2021Revised: 15 January 2022Accepted: 5 February 2022

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12689

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,

distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

© 2022 The Authors. Family Relations published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2023;72:1311–1325. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 1311