Sustaining Informal Caregivers - New York State Office for the Aging

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Informed Consent and Sample Verification Letters of informed consent were mailed out by AAA Directors to selected sample caregivers in advance so that they were informed about the upcoming survey and informal consent was obtained. The informed consent letter also provided caregivers an opportunity to confirm the legitimacy of the survey and to opt out of participating in the survey. In cases that caregivers had moved to a different address, the informed consent letter was returned to the AAAs. The AAAs then took off those caregivers who had moved or opted not to participate in the survey from the sample list and followed the instructions provided by the State Office to select substitutes for the sample. Through this sample verification and cleaning process, the final sample size resulted in 1,109. The AAAs then provided NYSOFA with caregiver’s names and addresses for the mail survey. The Caregiver Survey was administered by the Finger Lakes Geriatric Education Center (FLGEC) in May, 2008 and followed by a thank you/reminder postcard in mid-May. A second mailing of the survey was mailed during mid-June, 2008. It received tremendous statewide support from AAAs and caregiver support program participants. One hundred percent of sampled New York AAAs participated in the survey, and the response rate from caregiver support program participants was 55 percent. Both the support of AAAs and responses of program participants exceeded the expectations for a mail survey. Limitations The present study has several limitations that should be addressed in future research efforts. Of particular importance is that the findings of this survey are limited to caregivers who are either currently receiving formal services from the NYSOFA/AAA’s caregiver support programs and services or have received services during the last year. The characteristics explored in this study can only be generalized to caregivers in the NYSOFA/AAA caregiver support programs and services, which may be different from the general caregiver population. Past literature indicates that most caregivers are reluctant to seek the support of a formal services system for fear of losing independence and control, and a majority of them also are unaware of the availability of services. As suggested by Montgomery and Kosloski (2000), caregivers often waited until crisis arose or they were overwhelmed by the demand of caregiving, before seeking help from a formal services system. Therefore, caregivers in the formal system tend to care for those loved ones who have significant needs. The results of this survey provide evidence that supports this assertion. The survey design also suffers a few limitations in spite of the fact that considerable efforts were made in the design of the instrument and the administration of the survey. One key limitation is the method of data collection. A mail survey approach was adopted in order to give caregivers the flexibility and convenience of when to respond to the survey. However, this approach may lead to low response rates from individuals with lower literacy levels. In addition, this questionnaire was in English, and thus may have excluded non-English speaking caregivers, including immigrant populations. Furthermore, this survey focused on caregivers of older adults, without considering caregivers of young, disabled individuals and other caregiver populations, 37
such as gay and lesbian caregivers. Future research should consider studying caregivers of young disabled individuals, and gay and lesbian individuals. Additionally, the questionnaire should be translated into languages of the caregivers so that more caregivers can participate in the survey to provide a more comprehensive picture of caregiving issues and assessment of caregiver support services in New York. In addition, the survey findings rely upon honest responses and good recall of the survey respondents. Thus, faulty recall on how many hours of care, on average, caregivers usually provide to their care receiver in a week would affect the results. Furthermore, this survey suffers from a lack of questions in certain areas. For example, questions such as why caregivers seek help from the formal system and the employment status of caregivers were not asked in this study. These questions may be helpful to understand how to outreach to those who are not in the current services system and the impact of caregiving on employment. Future studies should consider including questions in these areas in order to obtain a more comprehensive picture of caregiver situations, better understanding of what motivates caregivers to seek help, and techniques to improve accessibility and delivery of caregiver support services. 38
Page 1 and 2: Sustaining Informal Caregivers Davi
Page 3 and 4: Data Collection and Technical Suppo
Page 5 and 6: List of Tables Table 1. Age of Care
Page 7 and 8: List of Figures Figure 1. Age of Ca
Page 9 and 10: merit of NYSOFA/AAA caregiver suppo
Page 11 and 12: Race and Ethnicity In terms of ethn
Page 13 and 14: Care Receiver Characteristics While
Page 15 and 16: Living Arrangements A significant n
Page 17 and 18: study is likely due to differences
Page 19 and 20: Caregiving Rewards Caregiving Rewar
Page 21 and 22: When asked about how caregivers rat
Page 23 and 24: Additional statements made by careg
Page 25 and 26: livings (ADLs) or other activities
Page 27 and 28: temporary relief from their care lo
Page 29 and 30: References Arno, P., Levine, C., &
Page 31 and 32: Appendix A Detailed Tables The foll
Page 33 and 34: Detailed Tables, continued Table 8.
Page 35 and 36: Detailed Tables, continued Table 15
Page 41 and 42: Caregivers Comments: Impacts of Ser
Page 43: Orleans, Oswego, Otsego, Rensselaer
Page 47 and 48: Appendix E Sample Weighting Scheme
Page 49 and 50: Range of Estimates from the for the
Page 52: 12/31/09 ah New York State O theA f

Sustaining Informal Caregivers - New York State Office for the Aging

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