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Caregiving Can Result in Stroke -- Yours!
Experts have increasingly documented how the stress and strain of caring for a loved one extracts a heavy toll on the caregiver, but researchers now report that caring for a spouse directly increases your chances for a stroke.
The increased stroke risk is especially true for men, and especially African-American men, according to research findings reported by William Haley, PhD, of the University of South Florida, and colleagues. Their report was published in the journal Stroke.
In reaching their conclusions, researchers drew upon the so-called REGARDS study, so-named to signify REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke. REGARDS is a continuing epidemiological look at stroke and coronary heart disease incidence and mortality in a large national sample of adults over age 45.
From the more than 30,000 study participants, the researchers found 767 who lived with and cared for a disabled spouse and had no history of stroke or coronary heart disease.
Researchers used interviews and home visits to divide participants into those reporting high, some, or no strain associated with caregiving. They also calculated 10-year stroke and coronary heart disease risk, using risk scores from the well-known Framingham study.
As a result, Haley’s team found that high caregiving stress and strain was associated with a 13.62% risk of stroke for high-strain caregivers over a 10-year period. That was 23% higher than the estimated stroke risk of 11.06% for caregivers reporting no strain.
At the same time, Haley and colleagues found significant interactions between race, sex, and caregiving strains. When those were taken into account, African-American men with high caregiving stress had an estimated 10-year stroke risk of 26.95% -- markedly higher than the risk for any other race or sex group.
Among other groups with high caregiving strain, white men had a 10-year risk of about 15%, while white and African-American women had risks estimated to be between 10% and 12%.
The researchers cautioned that the study is cross-sectional, meaning that people high in some stroke risk factors may simply find caregiving to be more stressful than others.
Interestingly, Haley said, men overall in the study reported lower stress than women, perhaps because they tend to use more paid help than females and have more assistance from extended family. And it may be that the men reporting high caregiving strain lack such outside help, he added.
In conclusion, Haley’s team determined that the risk of stroke is great enough to warrant a general call for extra support for the nation’s caregiving population.
The study was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
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Caught Between Your Partner and Loved One: When Caregiving Interferes with Your Personal Relationship -- 5/31/04
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