BackgroundThis study determined if patients’ long-term care service use (LTCSU) is separately associated with their informal caregivers’ burden, depression, and health status.MethodsEligible articles collected data directly from informal caregivers, were written in English, and allowed for extraction or computation of effect sizes on the associations of interest. MEDLINE, PsycINFO and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global databases were searched between September 2017 and January 2018. The risk of bias of individual studies was assessed regarding confounding, study power, sources of bias, potential flaws in study methods or implementation, and other biases. Dissertations that was later published as journal articles were excluded to prevent duplication. This study was registered with PROSPERO: CRD42018108827.ResultsOf the 419, 209 and 346 articles identified, 24, 14 and 15 articles that involved 12,530, 6,687 and 7,331 informal caregivers respectively, were eligible for analyses regarding the above associations. With unadjusted effect sizes, omnibus tests found statistically non-significant overall effect estimates in the association of LTCSU with caregiver burden (lnOR = 0.03, 95% CI [-0.48, 0.54], I2 = 0.96, k = 12), depression, (lnOR = 0.02, 95% CI [-0.30, 0.61], I2 = 0.81, k = 8), and health status (lnOR = -0.01, 95% CI [-0.56, 0.54], I2 = 0.63, k = 5). Subgroup analyses revealed that the above associations differed chiefly by service type, caregiver sex, and country of study, respectively.InterpretationPatients’ LTCSU is associated with their informal caregivers’ psychosocial needs, which could be better supported.FundingThis study was unfunded.
An Analysis of Health Status and Long-term Care Expenses of Older Population
