Nurses Caring for Older Adult Family Members: Disclosing Caregiving to Work Supervisors

Disclosure of family caregiving to work supervisors is needed for nurses to access work support for family caregiving. Little is known about characteristics of nurses who decide to/not to disclose family caregiving to supervisors.

The objective was to examine characteristics of nurses based on whether they disclosed caregiving responsibilities to their nursing supervisors and describe reasons for non-disclosure.

This was a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional survey. Registered nurses who had a work supervisor and cared for an older adult family member completed a survey including demographics, work and caregiving characteristics, and disclosure. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression were conducted.

The sample included 162 nurses. Participants were on average 50 years old, 90.1% female, 65.4% married, and 80.9% were caring for a parent or parent-in-law. The disclosure was more likely among nurses who provided higher intensity care (hours of care), cared for a parent or in-law, or had a quality caregiver-care recipient relationship. Reasons for non-disclosure included wanting to separate personal and work life, discomfort, and fear of consequences.

Nurses struggle with similar disclosure challenges as other family caregivers. Care intensity, caregiver-care recipient relationships, and care stress were associated with disclosure behaviors.