The in fl uence of spirituality on caregiver burden and quality of life in older adult informal caregivers

Background: Caregiver burden (CB) reduces quality of life (QOL) and causes poor health outcomes. Spirituality impacts this relationship. Aims: To determine prevalence of CB and investigate relationships among CB, spirituality, and QOL in older U.S. adult informal caregivers ( n = 754). Methods: This was a cross-sectional, descriptive secondary analysis of data from the 2020 Health and Retirement Study using GLM and SEM. Results: Caregiver mean age was 65.93 (SD=8.37). Caregivers were primarily female ( n = 456, 54.0%), White ( n = 500, 79.5%), and married ( n = 469, 65.3%). Most caregivers had moderate CB ( n = 369, 49.8%). Black caregivers who were spiritual ( p =.031) and caregivers with a high school diploma/GED who were spiritual ( p =.021) had lower CB. Lower CB was correlated with higher QOL ( p = < 0.001). SEM depicting an influencing effect of spirituality revealed good model fit (NFI=0.988; IFI=0.993; TLI=0.983; PCFI=0.397, RMSEA=0.043; x 2 =9.577, p =.048, DF=4) Conclusions: Fostering spirituality in older adult caregivers could reduce CB and improve QOL. (c) 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.