TY - JOUR

T1 - Getting back or giving back: understanding caregiver motivations and willingness to provide informal care

AU - Zarzycki, Mikołaj

AU - Morrison, Valerie

N1 - This opinion paper was undertaken as part of postgraduate study conducted by author Mikołaj Zarzycki. The PhD was funded by EC funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018), grant agreement No. 814072

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Background: Informal caregivers are those providing care, which exceeds that which is typically provided, to a relative or friend with care needs. Informal caregiving constitutes the backbone of a society’s care supply and with ageing populations the need for informal care is growing. We know little as to why caregivers start caring and continue doing so, yet understanding of motivations and willingness to provide care is important if informal caregivers are to be supported. However, both motivations and willingness are inconsistently defined making it difficult to compare the empirical findings that do exist.Methods: This paper reviews and synthesises thinking about the theoretical constructs of motivations to provide care and willingness to perform informal care, and presents those in relation to existing theoretical and empirical literature.Results and Conclusions: Theoretical reflections based on various motivational frameworks and available empirical data are presented to illustrate that: caregiving motivations should be conceptualised as multifaceted and multiply determined; intrinsic and extrinsic motivations should not be treated as antagonistic and can occur simultaneously; the commonly applied model of extrinsic/intrinsic motivations is oversimplified and omits consideration of the diversity of caregiver motives; other motivational models can be discerned in the context of the empirical research; there are differences between motivations and willingness to provide care with the latter being more consequent to the motives; both should be considered dynamic in nature; and finally, that the two constructs may not inevitably lead to actual caregiver behaviour. The implications of these theoretical reflections for methodology and research as well as their relevance for practice and policy are indicated.

AB - Background: Informal caregivers are those providing care, which exceeds that which is typically provided, to a relative or friend with care needs. Informal caregiving constitutes the backbone of a society’s care supply and with ageing populations the need for informal care is growing. We know little as to why caregivers start caring and continue doing so, yet understanding of motivations and willingness to provide care is important if informal caregivers are to be supported. However, both motivations and willingness are inconsistently defined making it difficult to compare the empirical findings that do exist.Methods: This paper reviews and synthesises thinking about the theoretical constructs of motivations to provide care and willingness to perform informal care, and presents those in relation to existing theoretical and empirical literature.Results and Conclusions: Theoretical reflections based on various motivational frameworks and available empirical data are presented to illustrate that: caregiving motivations should be conceptualised as multifaceted and multiply determined; intrinsic and extrinsic motivations should not be treated as antagonistic and can occur simultaneously; the commonly applied model of extrinsic/intrinsic motivations is oversimplified and omits consideration of the diversity of caregiver motives; other motivational models can be discerned in the context of the empirical research; there are differences between motivations and willingness to provide care with the latter being more consequent to the motives; both should be considered dynamic in nature; and finally, that the two constructs may not inevitably lead to actual caregiver behaviour. The implications of these theoretical reflections for methodology and research as well as their relevance for practice and policy are indicated.

KW - informal caregiving

KW - motivations to provide care

KW - caregiver motives

KW - filial obligation

KW - willingness to provide care

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2021.1951737

DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2021.1951737

M3 - Article

C2 - 34345534

VL - 9

SP - 636

EP - 661

JO - Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine

JF - Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine

SN - 2164-2850

IS - 1

ER -