LIVING WITH AN IMPAIRED ELDERLY PERSON - THE INFORMAL CAREGIVERS PHYSICAL AND MENTAL-HEALTH

Although it is acknowledged that providing an elderly relative with in formal assistance can be stressful and burdensome, previous research d oes not provide clear evidence of the impact of informal caregiving on the physical and mental health of caregivers. The objective of this r esearch was to compare health indicators of coresidents of elderly peo ple who have physical or cognitive impairments with those of two compa rison groups: individuals living with a nonimpaired person aged 55 or over and individuals who were not living with a person of that age. Sa mples were drawn from the Quebec Health Survey database. Although very few differences in physical health were observed between coresidents (n = 292) and individuals in the comparison groups, coresidents system atically presented poorer psychological health indicators. This result supports previous findings related to the low level of psychological well-being of informal caregivers. This suggests that informal caregiv ers should be regarded as a target population for which health and soc ial services should be carefully planned.