ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Aging and Public Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1618379
This article is part of the Research TopicCaregiver Burden in Alzheimer's and Other Chronic ConditionsView all 6 articles
Caregiving-Related Strain Among Informal Caregivers of Older Adults with Dementia: Findings from a Nationally Representative Study
Provisionally accepted
- King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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ABSTRACT Background and Objectives: Informal caregivers (ICs) of older adults with dementia experience caregiving-related physical, emotional, and financial strain. Little is known about their characteristics and caregiving-related strain differences by dementia status. Research Design and Methods: A cross-sectional study was implemented among probable, possible, and non-dementia ICs of older adults from the 2017 National Health and Ageing Trend Study and linked to the National Study of Caregiving data for a nationally representative sample of 2652. Analysis of variance was used to investigate differences in characteristics and caregiving-related strain by dementia status. Results: ICs of older adults with possible dementia were more likely to report an income ≤$99,999 (97.2%, p<0.001) than ICs of older adults with probable dementia (94.8%) or non-dementia (86.9%), with no other group characteristic observed. Caregiving-related strain varied significantly by dementia status (p < 0.001), with ICs of older adults with probable dementia reporting the highest physical, emotional, and financial strain compared to ICs caring for possible or non-dementia older adults. Discussion and Implications: Dementia ICs face disproportionately higher strain and greater financial vulnerability, underscoring the need for targeted interventions such as respite care, financial support, and caregiver training to sustain caregiver well-being as dementia prevalence rises.
Keywords: family caregivers, Unpaid caregivers, Strain, Alzheimer's disease, and related dementias
Received: 28 Apr 2025; Accepted: 15 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shubair. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sultan Ali Shubair, salshbair@ksu.edu.sa
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