Insomnia Symptom Trajectory of Spouse Caregivers of Older Adults with Functional Limitations

ABSTRACT

Objectives

This study examined the long-term impact of spouse caregiving on insomnia symptoms, compared to propensity-score matched non-caregivers.

Methods

Health and Retirement Study data between 2006 and 2018 were used. Caregivers (n = 403) were respondents (aged 50+) who assisted their heterosexual spouses in performing (instrumental) activities of daily living at baseline. Non-caregivers were matched using a propensity score matching procedure based on baseline characteristics. Insomnia symptoms were measured every 4 years for both groups. Poisson mixed-effect models estimated the association between caregiver status and insomnia symptoms.

Results

Compared to matched non-caregivers, caregivers had similar severity of insomnia symptoms at baseline (${\mathit{\beta }}_{\mathrm{caregiver}}$ = 0.018, 95% CI = −0.089, 0.124) and reported a similar yearly change rate (${\mathit{\beta }}_{\mathrm{caregiver}\times \mathrm{time}}$ = −0.008, 95% CI = −0.017, 0.001). No moderation effects of care-recipients’ dementia status and social support were significant.

Conclusions

In this study sample, there is no evidence that spouse caregivers, specifically those who performed light duties, experience more severe insomnia symptoms than non-caregivers.

Clinical implications

Spouse caregiving, especially in a light-duty capacity, may not be detrimental to the caregivers’ sleep health. More data are needed regarding insomnia in spouse caregivers with heavy duties of care to fully assess the health impact of the caregiving experience.

KEYWORDS:

• Propensity score matching
• sleep health
• spouse caregivers

Acknowledgments

This analysis uses data or information from the Harmonized HRS dataset and Codebook, Version C as of January 2022 developed by the Gateway to Global Aging Data. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25549/4smz-hp46. Development of the Harmonized HRS was funded by the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG030153, RC2 AG036619, 1R03AG043052). For more information, please refer to https://g2aging.org/.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data accessibility statement

The data are available to the public. For more information, please refer to the HRS webpage: https://hrs.isr.umich.edu/about

Ethical approval statement

This study used a completely de-identified public dataset and did not involve any human subjects research. Therefore, IRB approval is not required.

Author Contributions

DK and PL designed the study. PL performed data analysis. PL and DK drafted the manuscript. VL and MS revised the manuscript.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/07317115.2023.2211560.

Clinical implications

Spouse caregiving, especially for those in a light duty capacity, is not damaging to the caregivers’ sleep health.

More data are needed regarding insomnia in spouse caregivers with heavy duties of care to fully assess the health impact of caregiving experience.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.