Getting back or giving back: understanding caregiver motivations and willingness to provide informal care

Abstract

Background: Informal caregivers are those providing care, which exceeds that which is typically provided, to a relative or friend with care needs. Informal caregiving constitutes the backbone of a society's care supply and with ageing populations the need for informal care is growing. We know little as to why caregivers start caring and continue doing so, yet understanding of motivations and willingness to provide care is important if informal caregivers are to be supported. However, both motivations and willingness are inconsistently defined making it difficult to compare the empirical findings that do exist. Methods: This paper reviews and synthesises thinking about the theoretical constructs of motivations to provide care and willingness to perform informal care, and presents those in relation to existing theoretical and empirical literature. Results and Conclusions: Theoretical reflections based on various motivational frameworks and available empirical data are presented to illustrate that: caregiving motivations should be conceptualised as multifaceted and multiply determined; intrinsic and extrinsic motivations should not be treated as antagonistic and can occur simultaneously; the commonly applied model of extrinsic/intrinsic motivations is oversimplified and omits consideration of the diversity of caregiver motives; other motivational models can be discerned in the context of the empirical research; there are differences between motivations and willingness to provide care with the latter being more consequent to the motives; both should be considered dynamic in nature; and finally, that the two constructs may not inevitably lead to actual caregiver behaviour. The implications of these theoretical reflections for methodology and research as well as their relevance for practice and policy are indicated.

Cultural and societal motivations for being informal caregivers: a qualitative systematic review and meta-synthesis

“…Perceived limitations to formal service provision. Perceiving barriers to accessing formal services or considering them as ineffective in addressing caregiver and care recipients' needs Zarzycki & Morrison, 2021) led to a perceived lack of alternative care options and choice for many caregivers. This was key in motivating caregivers to provide care themselves.…”

“…Alongside the concept of motivations to provide care, willingness to perform informal care tasks addresses more behavioural aspects of caregiving with current (actual) and future (hypothetical) orientations towards providing support for an individual (Abell, 2001;Zarzycki & Morrison, 2021). Whilst motivations can refer broadly to the reasons and drivers underlying, directing and maintaining caregiving behaviour (Ryan & Deci, 2000;Woolfolk, 2013), willingness to perform care typically addresses certain aspects of caregiver behaviour, for example, willingness to carry out specific emotional and personal care tasks (Abell, 2001;McDonell et al, 1991).…”

“…Whilst motivations can refer broadly to the reasons and drivers underlying, directing and maintaining caregiving behaviour (Ryan & Deci, 2000;Woolfolk, 2013), willingness to perform care typically addresses certain aspects of caregiver behaviour, for example, willingness to carry out specific emotional and personal care tasks (Abell, 2001;McDonell et al, 1991). An individual may be motivated for various reasons to provide care for someone, but simultaneously or subsequently they may not be willing to carry out particular caring tasks (e.g., intimate personal care tasks; Zarzycki & Morrison, 2021). Burridge et al (2007) in their systematic review of 17 studies focusing on cancer caregiving identified 4 groups of willingness to care indicators (demographic, physical, social and psychologicalincluding emotions), providing the first synthesis of evidence pertaining to the role willingness to provide care plays in informal care.…”

A Multinational Longitudinal Study Incorporating Intensive Methods to Examine Caregiver Experiences in the Context of Chronic Health Conditions: Protocol of the ENTWINE-iCohort

“…Research has commonly identified love and affection as the primary motivation for adopting a typically unpaid caregiver role [ 7 , 8 ] along with motives of duty and reciprocity [ 9 ]. However the complexity of dyadic relationships and attachments [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ], the existence of varying cultural norms, values and obligations [ 15 , 16 ], competing social and economic demands on potential caregivers [ 17 ] and the fact that modern families tend not to be as geographically co-located as in previous generations [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ] are less typically examined in relation to their influence on caregiver motivations.…”

Informal caregiver motivations, values, challenges and gains: A photovoice and interpretative phenomenological analysis of interrelationships

“…Motivations to provide informal care describe the reasons why people engage in caregiving (Zarzycki and Morrison, 2021). Motivations are central to many psychological studies of behaviour (e.g.…”