Minority Family Caregivers of Older Adults and Unmet Needs in Health and Social Services

Background and Purpose: An increased level of long-term care services (e.g. home care, day programs, and respite care) is significantly needed for older adults with chronic illnesses and their family caregivers living in a community. Literature on caregiving has shown that minority family caregivers tend not to use community long-term care services and have difficulty providing care for their older adult relatives compared to non-minority family caregivers. Therefore, more work is required to understand the factors related to the unmet needs of minority family caregivers. The purpose of this study is to explore the predictors of unmet needs in health and social services among minority family caregivers of older adults in order to better understand the underlying factors that inhibit their use of these services.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 102 racial- and ethnic-minority family caregivers of older adults with chronic illnesses in Montreal, Canada. The sample was drawn from communities and religious organizations, informal referrals, social service providers, and on site recruitment by the principal investigator. Bivariate analysis and hierarchical multiple regression were conducted by using SPSS 24. 

Results: Among 102 participants, the majority of minority family caregivers were female, and immigrants, had a mean age of 60. Results of the hierarchical regression analysis show that total unmet needs were predicted by a lower number of care recipient medical issues ( b = -.52 , p = .00, 95% CI [ -.78 , -.25]) , a higher level of cultural incompatibility ( b = .25 , p = .05, 95% CI [ -.00 , .50] ) , unfamiliarity with Canadian health and social systems ( b = -.69  , p  = .04, 95% CI [ -.1.35 , -.02] ) ,and a lower level of connection to religious communities ( b = -.24 , p = .04 , 95% CI [ -.47, -.00] ) among minority family caregivers.

Conclusion and Implications: Findings of this current study suggest that structural factors, including cultural incompatibility and experience of using ethnic-specific services, were significantly associated with unmet needs among minority family caregivers. Not considering these structural factors will continue to leave an incomplete picture of service barriers to caregivers’ perception of unmet needs in health and social services. To better address various types of needs among caregivers, service agencies and policy makers should pay more attention to methods that might reduce caregiver’s negative experiences in service areas. Some of these methods include providing various types of cultural and linguistic programs based on the minority clients’ needs and learning how to better communicate with minority clients.