Cutting through the intersections to care for caregivers: secondary data analysis of a carers support service in Glasgow, Scotland

As the number of people living longer with life-limiting conditions grows, so too does the number of caregivers and the complexity of the caring role. To understand more about the role and how caregivers can be supported, local and national registers have been created that collect data on caregivers. Our objective was to undertake comparative analysis of female and male adult caregiver assessments from a caregiver database created from a carers support service running in Glasgow, Scotland. Assessments were carried out over a 12-month period (01/04/17–29/03/18). We aimed to identify the prevalence of negative consequences of caring through descriptive statistical, comparative analysis. Seven hundred and eighty-three assessments were eligible for inclusion. In our dataset, 69% were female (n = 552), and 29% were male (n = 231). Female caregivers were more likely to be of working age but unemployed (p = 0.03) and experiencing mental ill-health (p = 0.011). Male caregivers were more likely to be retired (p < 0.001), caring for a parent (p = 0.017) and living with heart disease (p = 0.0004), addiction issues (p = 0.013) or diabetes (p = 0.042) than female caregivers. For caregivers using this support service, female and male caregivers experienced, recognised or reported negative impacts from caring on their personal identity, social life, ability to self-care and relationships similarly. Furthermore, a caregiver whose relationships had been negatively impacted was 13.8 times more likely (p > 0.00) to report a reduction in psychological well-being. Sex disaggregated data are an important consideration for caregiver research due to socio-political influences that impact caring roles and expectations. Disaggregating data by sex allow researchers to understand how the caring role differs between subsets and allow for the development of more targeted, sensitive support