Long-Term Impact of Grandchild Caregiving Trajectories on Depression in Middle-Aged and Older Chinese People: A Longitudinal Study
Abstract
There has been little research investigating the effects of caregiving for grandchildren on grandparents’ mental health from a dynamic perspective. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects on caregivers’ depression of changes in grandparenting intensity. The study population included 8,157 respondents obtained from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Latent growth mixture modeling was used to group respondents into five classes of trajectory of caregiving intensity as follows: “sharply decreasing”, “never or rarely”, “slowly decreasing”, “increasing”, and “continuously high”. A generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) and a marginal structural model (MSM) both associated the “continuously high” and “sharply decreasing” intensities with depression. “Continuously high” intensity significantly increased the risk of depression in the male group only. Further research should be conducted to analyze the deep-seated mechanisms of association between grandparenting and mental health, in different cultural contexts and among subgroups with different characteristics.
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Biographies
Haomiao Li is a lecturer in the School of Political Science and Public Administration at Southern Medical University. He holds a PhD in social medicine and health management from the School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology. His main research interests include: healthy aging, social science and health policy.
Li Gan is a student in the School of Health Management at Southern Medical University, majoring in Public Service Management (Hospital Management).
Dong(Roman) Xu is a professor in the School of Health Management at Southern Medical University. He holds a PhD in Global Health from the University of Washington School of Public Health (Seattle, USA). He is an associate editor of Implementation Science Communications, Tropical Medicine & International Health. His main research interests include: global health, methods and application of implementation science, chronic disease management, use of mobile technology in health services, and measurement and improvement of quality of primary health services.
Jiangyun Chen is a lecturer in the School of Health Management at Southern Medical University. She holds a PhD in social medicine and health management from the School of Medicine and Health Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology. She is the reviewer for International journal for equity in health, Journal of epidemiology & community health. Her main research interests include: healthy aging, primary health services, family health, tobacco control.
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Article first published online: March 4, 2022
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