Kings County

1
Kings County

• Caregivers and Unpaid Caregiving
• Deborah Kiceniuk, PhD
• Adrian MacKenzie, BSc
• Andrew Harvey, PhD

2
Unpaid Caregiving

• Unpaid work households do by and for themselves,
  including domestic chores, childcare, and shopping

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Objectives

• 1. To examine the relationship between caregiving
  and health behaviours and practices in relation
  to demographic variables
• 2. To examine similarities and differences in
  health behaviours and practices between
  caregivers in two Nova Scotian communities in
  relation to demographic variables

4
Variables What we looked at!

• Demographics
• gender, marital status, education, age,
  income, and occupational status
• ? Health Status
• perceived physical and emotional health
• objective measures limited activity and
  medication use

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Variables contd

• Health Care Utilization
• frequency of visits to physicians, other
  health care providers, mental health
  professionals, OP/Emerg.
• Health Behaviours
• frequency of pap smears mammograms,
• smoking, exercise within various time
• frames

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Variables contd

• Social Support
• frequency of contacting relatives or
  neighbours
• frequency in attending religious events
• ability to partake volunteer activities

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Hypotheses what we expected!

• Caregivers are more likely to be female, married,
  middle-aged, unemployed or not in the workforce,
  less education, lower income
• Caregivers poorer emotional health status, and
  similar physical health status
• Caregivers and non-caregivers will have similar
  health utilization and health behaviour patterns

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Kings County - respondents
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Demographics
10
Gender
11
Age
12
Marital Status
13
Main Activity
14
Household Income
15
Education Level
16
Emotional and Physical Health
17
Perceived Health Status
18
Activity Limitations
19
Pain Relievers/Anti-inflammatory
20
Stomach Remedies
21
Stress Levels
22
Time with Friends/Family
23
Trying to Accomplish More
24
Health Care Utilization
25
Physician Contact
26
Social Support
27
Contact with Family
28
Contact with Neighbors
29
Kings County and Glace Bay - Caregivers
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Hypothesis 2 What we expected

• ?The population of Kings County will be
  younger than that of Glace Bay
• ?Based on age
• Glace Bay caregivers will use health care
  services more frequently than Kings County
• caregivers in Glace Bay will have lower income
  levels than those of Kings County

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Age
32
Marital Status
33
Main Activity
34
Gender
35
Education Level
36
Household Income
37
Perceived Health Status
38
Activity Limitations
39
Chronic Diseases

• Caregivers
• Twice as many CG migraine headaches, and
  intestinal disorders
• Three times as many CG bowel disorders

40
Pain Relievers/Anti-inflammatory
41
Anti-depressants
42
Asthma Medications
43
Contact with Physicians
44
ER/OP Visits
45
Smoking
46
Exercise
47
Contact with Neighbours
48
Contact with Relatives
49
Suggestions for Future Research

• Resource availability
• Factors associated with care-receivers illness
• Length of time in caregiver role
• Caregivers health status pre- and
  post-caregiving role