Suicidal ideation among informal caregivers of older adults: The role of family values, care stigma, and care gains.

Abstract

Aim: This study aims to analyze the association between care-specific psychosocial factors in terms of familism, care stigma, caregiver burden, and gains with suicidal ideation of informal caregivers of older adults in Germany.

Method: Data from the Attitudes Towards Informal Caregivers Project (ATTIC) of 433 informal caregivers of adults aged ≥ 60 years was used to analyze the research question. The Internalized Caregiver Stigma Scale was used to measure the internalized attitudes and behavior of informal caregivers regarding care provision for older adults, suicidal ideation was measuring passive suicide thoughts, care gains were measured with positive aspects of care scale and familism was measured with the short attitudinal familism scale. Linear regression analysis with robust standard errors were calculated and adjusted for contextual and personal factors (e.g., co-residence, personality, social support).

Results: Stronger beliefs in negative internalized care stigma were associated with higher frequency of suicide thoughts, while stronger positive internalized care stigma, familism, and care gains were not significantly associated with suicidal ideation. The associations were also found in additional analysis with a log-transformed outcome of suicidal ideation and in analyses excluding mental health as covariate (except for burden, which was significantly associated with suicidal ideation).

Conclusion: Care-specific psychosocial factors in terms of negative care stigma are important to the risk for suicidal ideation. Thus, changing negative thoughts, evaluations and expectations about informal care and its performance could be helpful to prevent informal caregivers experiencing (high levels of) suicidal ideation.