Reverberations of family illness: a longitudinal assessment of informal caregiving and mental health status in the Nurses' Health Study.
OBJECTIVE
. This study examined the association between caregiving for disabled or ill family members, estimated to occur in more than 22 million US households, and change in mental health.


METHODS
We assessed 4-year change in mental health among 37 742 Nurses' Health Study participants with the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36.


RESULTS
Women who provided 36 or more weekly hours of care to a disabled spouse were almost 6 times more likely than noncaregivers to experience depressive or anxious symptoms (multivariate odds ratio [OR] = 5.6; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.8, 8.3). Caring for a disabled or ill parent (>or= 36 weekly hours) was associated with a less dramatic elevation in depressive or anxious symptoms (multivariate OR = 2.0; 95% CI = 0.9, 4.3).


CONCLUSIONS
In this population, caregiving was associated with increased risk of depressive or anxious symptoms.
Cannuscio
Carolyn C
CC
Department of Health and Social Behavior, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Jones
Camara
C
Kawachi
Ichiro
I
Colditz
Graham A
GA
Berkman
Lisa
L
Rimm
Eric
E
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000453:epidemiology; D017028:Caregivers / Q000145:classification / Q000523:psychology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D017281:Cost of Illness; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006701:Home Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010290:Parents; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D018454:Spouses; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D016387:Women's Health