Abstract
Background: The adverse impact of caregiving on caregivers’ mental health and the positive impact of social capital (SC) on health are both well understood. This study examined the moderating effect of SC on the association between family caregiving and caregivers’ psychological distress (PD).Methods: We used longitudinal data from 27,869 individuals born between 1946 and 1955. The data were collected from a 14-wave nationwide longitudinal survey conducted from 2005 to 2018. We estimated dynamic panel data (DPD) models, which could control for an individual’s time-invariant attributes in a dynamic framework. We did this to examine how SC moderated the association between informal caregiving and a caregiver’s PD (defined by a Kessler score of 13 or higher). We also examined how the results varied over time, as the caregiver’s age advanced.Results: Of the respondents aged 50–73 years, 12.5% of women and 8.4% of men provided care to their older parents or spouses. The DPD model results showed that the onset of caregiving increased the probability of PD (M 3.4%) by 2.1% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.6%–2.7%) and 1.1% (95% CI: 0.5%–1.6%) for women and men, respectively. SC moderated the association between caregiving and a caregiver’s PD by 53.4% (95%: 30.4%–76.4%) and 84.9% (95% CI: 62.0%–107.8%) for women and men, respectively. We also observed that the moderating effect of SC on a caregiver’s PD increased as the caregiver’s age advanced in both women and men, preventing a deterioration in the psychological impact of caregiving. Conclusions: The results underscore the moderating effect of SC on the association between caregiving and PD. This suggests the need to keep family caregivers from being socially isolated, especially as they get older.
Social Capital as a Moderator for Caregivers’ Psychological Distress: A Dynamic Panel Data Model Analysis in Japan
