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Current and long-term spousal caregiving and onset of cardiovascular disease.
- Source :
- Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health; Oct2012, Vol. 66 Issue 10, p951-956, 6p, 3 Charts
- Publication Year :
- 2012
-
Abstract
- Background Prior evidence suggests that caregiving may increase risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) onset. This association has never been examined in a nationally (USA) representative sample, and prior studies could not fully control for socioeconomic confounders. This paper seeks to estimate the association between spousal caregiving and incident CVD in older Americans. Methods Married, CVD-free Health and Retirement Study respondents aged 50+ years (n=8472) were followed up to 8 years (1669 new stroke or heart disease diagnoses). Current caregiving exposure was defined as assisting a spouse with basic or instrumental activities of daily living ≥14 h/week according to the care recipients' report in the most recent prior biennial survey; we define providing ≥14 h/week of care at two consecutive biennial surveys as 'long-term caregiving'. Inverse probability weighted discrete-time hazard models with time-updated exposure and covariate information (including socioeconomic and cardiovascular risk factors) were used to estimate the effect of caregiving on incident CVD. Results Caregiving significantly predicted CVD incidence (HR=1.35, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.68) in the population overall. Long-term caregiving was associated with double the risk of CVD onset (HR=1.95, 95% CI 1.19 to 3.18). This association for long-term care givers varied significantly by race (p<0.01): caregiving predicted CVD onset for white (HR=2.37, 95% CI 1.43 to 3.92) but not for non-white (HR=0.28, 95% CI 0.06 to 1.28). Conclusions Spousal caregiving independently predicted risk of CVD in a large sample of US adults. There was significant evidence that the effect for long-term care givers differs for non-whites and white. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- AGE factors in disease
CARDIOVASCULAR diseases risk factors
CAREGIVERS
CLUSTER analysis (Statistics)
CONFIDENCE intervals
STATISTICAL correlation
EPIDEMIOLOGY
LONGITUDINAL method
MEDLINE
PSYCHOLOGICAL tests
RESEARCH funding
STATISTICAL sampling
SCALES (Weighing instruments)
SPOUSES
DATA analysis
ACTIVITIES of daily living
SOCIOECONOMIC factors
BODY mass index
DATA analysis software
DESCRIPTIVE statistics
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 0143005X
- Volume :
- 66
- Issue :
- 10
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 79913626
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2011-200040