Twee manieren om te vragen of iemand mantelzorg geeft

Samenvatting

Mantelzorg is de hulp die mensen elkaar geven vanwege de onderlinge band die zij hebben. Dit lijkt een heldere definitie, maar het is niet eenvoudig om eenduidig vast te stellen wie er mantelzorg geven. De manier waarop je hiernaar vraagt kan tot grote verschillen in de gerapporteerde prevalentie van mantelzorg leiden. In deze bijdrage gaan we na in hoeverre verschillende vragen met verschillende schattingen van mantelzorg samenhangen.

Abstract

Two ways to ask if someone provides informal care

There are several definitions or approaches of informal care. These definitions and approaches lead to criteria for in- or exclusion of specific groups of caregivers. These criteria are: the care receivers’ health problem; the caregiver and care receiver’s relationship; type of help. We report results of a survey experiment applying different criteria on a sample of adults in the Netherlands. They result in different estimates of the size and composition of the population of informal caregivers. When a broad definition is applied, including help to healthy people, the estimated size of the informal caregiver population is 47% in 2014. A more restrictive estimate, based on the combination of several criteria including health problems of the care receiver, results in 20% informal caregivers. Both definitions lead to over-representation of middle aged people and people with small jobs. The percentage men and women who provide informal care is strongly dependent on the formulation of the question. Kewords: informal care, definition, questionnaire