The Psychological Well-Being of Older Parent Caregivers in Ghana: The Roles of Functional Health and Social Connectedness

Background and Purpose: Providing care to a child in midlife and old age is non-normative, and it poses physical, emotional, and social challenges to caregivers, which may take a tool on their well-being. With the lack of available public services, older people in Ghana often take a primary responsibility for their adult children with disabilities and grandchildren orphaned by their parents’ absence or inability to provide care. However, research exploring the well-being of the older parent caregivers and its associated factors in Ghana is sparse. Thus, this study examined (1) whether caregiving for a child/grandchild has negative effects on psychological well-being among Ghanaian midlife or older caregivers, and (2) whether the better functional health and greater social connectedness of the caregivers buffer the effects. 

Method: Using data from the first wave of the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) Ghana, which involves a nationally representative sample of persons aged 50 and older, this study analyzed 102 midlife or older adults who provided care for their co-residing children and/or grandchildren over the past 12 months. Non-caregivers who do not have any household members to take care of (n=3,822) were also included in the study as a comparison group. Standard measures of global (i.e. life satisfaction, happiness) and daily (i.e. positive affect, negative affect) psychological well-being, functional health, and social connectedness (i.e. the experience of belonging and relatedness between people) were administered. The data were analyzed using multiple regression models.

Results: At the bivariate level, caregivers reported poorer or comparable well-being compared with non-caregivers in spite of their better financial and educational status.  As confirming the findings from the bivariate analyses, the results from multiple regression analyses indicated that caregivers are likely to experience lower levels of life satisfaction, less happiness, less positive affect, and greater negative affect than non-caregivers. However, these negative effects of caregiving on well-being, especially on daily well-being, were buffered by caregivers’ functional health and social connectedness. For non-caregivers, the levels of negative affect remained relatively stable regardless of their levels of functional health and social connectedness whereas caregivers showed less negative affect with better functional health and greater social connectedness. Better functional health was also associated with greater positive affect among caregivers whereas the association was not significant among non-caregivers.       

Conclusions and Implications: The findings on poorer well-being of midlife or older caregivers who provide care to their offspring, relative to that of non-caregivers, suggest that the caregivers in Ghana are in an urgent need for social work programs that help them to improve their psychological well-being. Given that functional health and social connectedness moderates the deleterious effects of caregiving on well-being, it is also recommended that efforts to maintain the caregivers’ functional health and to strengthen their social connectedness be incorporated in the programs.