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Association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in Germany

BACKGROUND: While most studies focused solely on the comparison between informal caregivers and non-caregivers, little is known about the relation between caregiving time or caregiving activities and lifestyle factors. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine whether informal caregiving time and t...

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Autores principales: Hajek, André, Bock, Jens-Oliver, König, Hans-Helmut
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5622456/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28962607
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4786-6
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author Hajek, André
Bock, Jens-Oliver
König, Hans-Helmut
author_facet Hajek, André
Bock, Jens-Oliver
König, Hans-Helmut
author_sort Hajek, André
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: While most studies focused solely on the comparison between informal caregivers and non-caregivers, little is known about the relation between caregiving time or caregiving activities and lifestyle factors. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine whether informal caregiving time and type of caregiving activities are associated with body mass index (BMI) and the frequency of sporting activities among informal caregivers. METHODS: Cross-sectional data were gathered from the German Ageing Survey, a nationally representative study among community-dwelling individuals aged ≥40 that includes a total of n = 1380 people who provide informal care services. Self-reported BMI and self-reported frequency of sporting activities (daily; several times a week; once a week; 1-3 times a month; less often; never) were used as dependent variables. The average time of providing informal care per week as well as four different caregiving activities (help around the house; looking after someone; performing nursing care services; help in another way) were included as independent variables. Multiple ordinal and linear regressions were used to estimate the association between caregiving factors and the frequency of sporting activities and BMI, respectively. RESULTS: Among the 1380 informal caregivers, 65% provided help around the house, 83% looked after people, 28% provided nursing care services, and 68% provided any other help. Bivariate analyses showed that sporting activities and BMI differed by status of providing nursing care services, whereas the other three types of informal caregiving were not associated with BMI nor frequency of sporting activities except for the latter and provision of help around the house. Multiple regressions showed that BMI increased with caregiving time and performing nursing care services, whereas it was not associated with the other three caregiving activities. Likewise, the frequency of sporting activities decreased only with caregiving time and performing nursing care services. CONCLUSIONS: The present study revealed that caregiving time and performing nursing care services are associated with a higher BMI and a decreased frequency of sporting activities. As both, a higher BMI and fewer sporting activities are in turn related to various adverse health outcomes, this knowledge should be taken into account when planning informal caregiving. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-017-4786-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-56224562017-10-11 Association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in Germany Hajek, André Bock, Jens-Oliver König, Hans-Helmut BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: While most studies focused solely on the comparison between informal caregivers and non-caregivers, little is known about the relation between caregiving time or caregiving activities and lifestyle factors. Thus, the aim of this study was to examine whether informal caregiving time and type of caregiving activities are associated with body mass index (BMI) and the frequency of sporting activities among informal caregivers. METHODS: Cross-sectional data were gathered from the German Ageing Survey, a nationally representative study among community-dwelling individuals aged ≥40 that includes a total of n = 1380 people who provide informal care services. Self-reported BMI and self-reported frequency of sporting activities (daily; several times a week; once a week; 1-3 times a month; less often; never) were used as dependent variables. The average time of providing informal care per week as well as four different caregiving activities (help around the house; looking after someone; performing nursing care services; help in another way) were included as independent variables. Multiple ordinal and linear regressions were used to estimate the association between caregiving factors and the frequency of sporting activities and BMI, respectively. RESULTS: Among the 1380 informal caregivers, 65% provided help around the house, 83% looked after people, 28% provided nursing care services, and 68% provided any other help. Bivariate analyses showed that sporting activities and BMI differed by status of providing nursing care services, whereas the other three types of informal caregiving were not associated with BMI nor frequency of sporting activities except for the latter and provision of help around the house. Multiple regressions showed that BMI increased with caregiving time and performing nursing care services, whereas it was not associated with the other three caregiving activities. Likewise, the frequency of sporting activities decreased only with caregiving time and performing nursing care services. CONCLUSIONS: The present study revealed that caregiving time and performing nursing care services are associated with a higher BMI and a decreased frequency of sporting activities. As both, a higher BMI and fewer sporting activities are in turn related to various adverse health outcomes, this knowledge should be taken into account when planning informal caregiving. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-017-4786-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2017-09-29 /pmc/articles/PMC5622456/ /pubmed/28962607 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4786-6 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hajek, André
Bock, Jens-Oliver
König, Hans-Helmut
Association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in Germany
title Association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in Germany
title_full Association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in Germany
title_fullStr Association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in Germany
title_full_unstemmed Association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in Germany
title_short Association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in Germany
title_sort association of informal caregiving with body mass index and frequency of sporting activities: evidence of a population-based study in germany
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5622456/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28962607
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4786-6
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