Veterans Caregiving for Others: Caregiving as a Factor in the Health of America's Military Veterans.

Introduction: Caregiving has become an important world-wide concern due to the increasing number of people living to old age who need day to day functional support. Many caregivers report moderate to high levels of caregiver burden, which has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality for both the caregiver and care recipient. There are numerous research publications on people who are caregivers for military veterans. However, there is little information on military veterans who are themselves caregivers. This study proposed to determine if there are differences in health and health behaviors between veterans who are caregiving for others (VCOs) and veterans who are not caregiving for others (VNCOs).

Materials and Methods: Data were analyzed from a population-based observational cross-section involving persons who identified as veterans in the 2009 Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) national telephone survey. Those identifying as veterans were then grouped by those who also identified as caregivers and those who did not identify as caregivers. Data were weighted using the CDC's weighting equation. Group differences were analyzed using Chi-square and t-tests. We used multinomial logistic regression with a 95% confidence interval (1 = VCO; 0 = VNCO) to determine if caregiving status among veterans was independently correlated with clinically relevant and explanatory variables.

Results: Of 432,607 BRFSS participants, 12,629 were VCOs (23.4% of veterans; 10.7% of caregivers) and 44,356 were VNCOs (76.6% of veterans). Veterans who were caregivers reported similar proportions of hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, history of stroke, and cancer compared with VNCOs, even though VCOs were younger than the VNCOs (57 vs. 59 yr, p < 0.01). Additionally, VCOs more often report current smoking (35% vs. 28%, p < 0.01), frequent insufficient sleep (29% vs. 21%, p < 0.01), and frequent mental distress (12% vs. 8%, p < 0.01).

Conclusion: Veterans who are caregiving for others (VCOs) despite being younger, have similar amounts of chronic health problems and more modifiable health factors (i.e., smoking) than veterans who are not caregiving for others (VNCOs). These characteristics have important implications for health management of veterans who are caregivers.