Ethnicity and informal support among filial caregivers: Analysis of an Israeli sample

The rate of informal in-home support generally provided by 120 filial relatives of temporarily hospitalized elders in Israel was compared on three measures of ethnicity: (1) ethnic identity (Ashkenazi or Sepharadi), (2) social class and (3) traditional religious orientation. Additional comparisons controlled for caregivers' sociodemographic characteristics and care-related need variables. Multivariate analysis confirmed that traditional religious orientation was the only measure of ethnicity to distinguish between levels of informal support, even when controlling for dependency levels of the care-recipient. The greatest amount of variance in informal support scores, however, was explained by ADL scores and length of dependency, giving support to the leveling effect of dependency. The findings give partial support to the need for ethnicsensitive treatment of informal carers and their elderly relatives.