Development and Validation of a Family Caregiver Constraint Index

Is an area-based index of barriers to family caregiving associated with hospital-based health outcomes?This cross-sectional study of an index of barriers to family caregiving used data for 329 725 481 persons from the 2017 to 2021 American Community Survey 5-year estimates. The 13-item Family Caregiver Constraint Index mapped to 4 subindices: competing demands (work and childcare responsibilities), long-distance work commute, income constraint, and recent immigration, with higher scores indicating greater barriers to synchronous family caregiving.Preliminary testing of the Family Caregiver Constraint Index suggests the validity of this index to measure caregiving-related domains that can be barriers to family caregiver engagement and their association with care recipient health outcomes.

Corresponding Author: Jennifer Tjia, MD, MSCE, Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, UMass Chan Medical School, 55 N Lake Ave, AS6-2065, Worcester, MA 01605 (jennifer.tjia@umassmed.edu).

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