Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Family Carers of Older People Living with Dementia in Italy and Hungary

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major effect on both older people with dementia and families caring for them. This paper presents the results of an online survey carried out among Italian and Hungarian family carers of people with dementia during the first pandemic wave (May–July 2020, n = 370). The research questions were the following: (1) How has the pandemic changed the lives of family carers? (2) How did government restriction measures change the availability of care-related help? (3) What other changes did families experience? Results show that about one-quarter of both subsamples experienced a deterioration in their financial status. A decline in both general and mental health was also reported. Due to “lockdown”, family carers’ burden increased substantially. Utilization of care-related help decreased, and the share of those left with no help increased in both countries. Cross-country differences emerged in terms of dementia care system, severity of the first pandemic wave, and measures put in place by governments. Findings outline the weaknesses of support structures and their country-specific vulnerabilities to a worldwide pandemic. To better protect people with dementia in the future, it is essential to strengthen their family carers, and support structures need to be re-evaluated and re-designed.

Factors Worsening and Mitigating the Consequences of the COVID-19 Outbreak on the Overall Health of Informal Caregivers of Older People with Long-Term Care Needs Living in Germany and in Italy

“…The reported findings confirm the increase in the intensity of care for both German and Italian informal caregivers [44] and the worsening of their overall health as a consequence of the pandemic [51], as already highlighted by several, primarily single-country, studies [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56].…”

“…In many countries, due to both the shortfall in support services and the persistent lack of information and guidance on the appropriate behaviour to adopt, informal caregivers experienced a great increase in their psychological and physical burden [54] as well as stress and anxiety [55]. This is also the case for Italy and Germany, as highlighted by recent studies [52,56].…”

Impact of COVID-19 on carers of people with dementia in the community: Findings from the IDEAL cohort

“…More carers were able to identify someone that could provide help than at IDEAL T3. This nding may seem contradictory with carers reporting increased caregiving responsibilities 12,28,37 and a lack of access to formal support services 13 . However, it may re ect that most carers had increased contact with family and thus a larger support network.…”

“…[18][19][20] Although these data provide a helpful description of carers' well-being, without details of the pre-COVID context, these studies cannot explore the wider impact of the pandemic and resulting restrictions on carers. Retrospective accounts, where carers compare their current situation to a time before the pandemic started [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] suggest that some carers described increased care needs of the person with dementia, 26,28,30 self-reported stress, 22,25 burden, 23,34 loneliness, 24 anxiety and depression, 24,27,33 although a worsening of well-being was not universal for all carers taking part in these studies.…”

A COVID–19 járvány hatása a leghátrányosabb helyzetű településeken élők mindennapjaira: ahogy a hátrányos helyzetűek és a szociális szolgáltatásokat nyújtók látják

“…Mivel a mélyszegénységben élők konstans válságállapotban élnek, életükben a járvány "mindössze" annyi újat hozott, hogy felmentek az élelmiszerárak és ezzel a kiszolgáltatottságuk tovább erősödött. A generációk óta teljes létbizonytalanságban élők körében a terhek növekedése területileg is jelentősen eltért, némely településen olyan mértékű volt, hogy az már a szociális munka színvonalas végzését és az ellátottak segítését is veszélyeztette (Kostyál et al 2021).…”