Caregiving Listserve from the National Alliance for Caregiving for Thursday, 1 May 2014

Caregiving Listserve from the National Alliance for Caregiving for Thursday, 1 May 2014
New research from Case Western Reserve University examined the relationship between full-time employed female caregivers and depression. As reported in Women's Health Issues, caregivers that had a higher mental effort and workload in caregiving, and poorer self-assessed health status were significantly correlated with high depressive symptoms. Daughters and women who lived with their care recipient also reported worse effort, workload, and health experiences. 
Read more about the research at: 
http://www.whijournal.com/article/S1049-3867(14)00005-X/pdf 
Full-Time Employed and a Family Caregiver: A Profile of Women’s Workload, Effort, and Health
Evanne Juratovac, PhD, RN, GCNS-BCemail, Jaclene A. Zauszniewski, PhD, RN-BC, FAAN
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
Women provide care for elderly family members while managing their other responsibilities, including full-time employment.
Methods
This descriptive study used an inductively derived workload–effort–health theoretical model to examine workload, effort, and health among 46 full-time employed family caregivers [CG] of community-dwelling older adults from a larger, nonprobability, cross-sectional sample of 110 CGs.
Findings
The women’s caregiving workload (time, difficulty, care recipient’s [CR] function), effort (perceived exertion of energy experienced in doing a workload), self-assessed health [SAH], depressive symptoms, and sources of help were richly described, and several associations were found, including higher physical and mental effort, were significantly correlated with higher workload time and difficulty and lower CR function, but not SAH. Higher mental effort and workload, and poorer SAH were significantly correlated with high depressive symptoms. Worse effort, workload, and health experiences were reported by daughters and by women who lived with their CR; those who did not have family or formal caregiving help had higher mental effort and were more depressed, suggesting an area for further study.
Conclusions
Suggestions are offered for richer measurement of employment status, caregiving workload, and effort. Findings provide a unique profile of full-time employed women CGs’ workload, effort (that is, how they do the work), and health, toward a stronger understanding of how women manage multiple workloads. Workplace policies are needed to address workload, effort and health in this informal caregiving workforce.
Have something to share with the Caregiving Listserve? Email Grace at gracewhiting@caregiving.org with your submission. 
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