Burden and Gender inequalities around Informal Care.
Giuliana F Cascella Carbó, Rosa García-Orellán
PMID 32124578WHAT IT FOUND
Informal care is mostly provided by women, and the review says it is associated with worse health, less leisure, and work losses.
It argues nurses should assess and support caregivers with a gender perspective.
Key findings
01Informal care accounts for 80-90% of dependency care and is usually done at home.
02Women are around 80% of informal caregivers worldwide, and women aged 45 to 60 are the main providers in European countries.
03In Spanish studies cited by the review, 32.7% of caregivers reported fatigue, 27.5% reported deteriorated health and 18.1% felt depressed; 61% reported reduced leisure time, 27% had no time for self-care and 17% had no time for other people.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
It is a bibliographic review, so the authors selected and summarised published sources rather than studying patients directly. It has no original participants, outcomes or intervention test, so it cannot show that any nurse-led or gender-sensitive programme works. The search was limited to selected databases, Spanish and English, and a publication date range set by the authors, so it may miss relevant studies. It excluded studies about informal care in specific pathologies and outside Europe and Spain, so its scope may not fit all conditions or regions. The authors present conclusions and recommendations in a review format, so some claims are interpretation as well as reported findings.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that a nurse-led gender-sensitive programme improves caregiver or patient outcomes. The paper is a narrative review of associations and author recommendations, not a trial.