Caregiver well-being and formal support: assessing service utilization impacts and the embedded strain

We examine the association between formal support and caregiver well-being. The extant literature indicates that formal support often correlates with worse caregiver mental health outcomes. We tested whether timing of formal support use, rather than the services themselves explain prior findings.

Using National Study of Caregivers data (NSOC 2015, 2017, & 2021), we analyzed the association between formal support utilization and caregiver mental health. We employed linear regression and Two-Stage Least Squares (N = 3,963) approach to address endogeneity and unobserved caregiver demand.

The results indicated positive or non-significant associations between formal support and mental health outcomes. However, formal support is negatively associated with depressive symptoms (β = -0.40) and generalized anxiety (β = -0.44) when instrumentalizing formal support as a function of caregiver demand for services. When strain on a caregiver is high (i.e. high overload, working, and high frequency caregiving activity), there is a higher propensity for utilizing formal support. Caregivers with high strain showed higher propensity for formal support utilization.

The results highlight that underlying demand functions are important mental health predictors as the negative impacts of caregiver strain may limit the efficacy of formal support services.