Table 4.
Five Latent Classes of the Subjective Experiences of Informal Caregiving to Older Adults (unweighted N = 2,202)
| Latent class | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intensive Caregivers | Balanced Caregivers | Dissatisfied Caregivers | Relationship Caregivers | Satisfied Caregivers | ||
| Predicted class membership | 10% | 18% | 15% | 26% | 32% | |
| Items | Probability of endorsing item | |||||
| Caregiving burden | Emotional | |||||
| Emotionally difficult | 0.82 | 0.61 | 0.79 | 0.16 | 0.17 | |
| No time for self | 0.90 | 0.77 | 0.57 | 0.24 | 0.25 | |
| Too much to handle | 0.82 | 0.73 | 0.54 | 0.19 | 0.15 | |
| As soon as routine, need change | 0.69 | 0.54 | 0.48 | 0.09 | 0.12 | |
| Interpersonal | ||||||
| Care recipient argues with you | 0.79 | 0.79 | 0.79 | 0.52 | 0.38 | |
| Care recipient gets on your nerves | 0.87 | 0.84 | 0.93 | 0.58 | 0.36 | |
| Physical | ||||||
| Exhausted when you go to sleep | 0.85 | 0.81 | 0.54 | 0.25 | 0.26 | |
| Physically difficult | 0.57 | 0.39 | 0.28 | 0.09 | 0.04 | |
| Financial | ||||||
| Financially difficult | 0.45 | 0.34 | 0.24 | 0.07 | 0.06 | |
| Kept from work | 0.39 | 0.09 | 0.08 | 0.02 | 0.03 | |
| Social | ||||||
| Kept from visiting friends/family | 0.80 | 0.16 | 0.15 | 0.01 | 0.02 | |
| Kept from religious services | 0.59 | 0.06 | 0.05 | 0.02 | 0.01 | |
| Kept from going out for enjoyment | 0.84 | 0.07 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| Kept from meetings, groups | 0.62 | 0.04 | 0.02 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| Kept from caring for others | 0.28 | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.00 | 0.01 | |
| Kept from volunteering | 0.40 | 0.06 | 0.04 | 0.00 | 0.01 | |
| Caregiving benefits | Emotional | |||||
| Gives you satisfaction | 0.84 | 0.95 | 0.60 | 0.80 | 0.98 | |
| Interpersonal | ||||||
| Brought closer to care recipient | 0.57 | 0.95 | 0.21 | 0.54 | 0.96 | |
| Enjoy being with care recipient | 0.68 | 0.96 | 0.39 | 0.89 | 0.98 | |
| Care recipient appreciates you | 0.68 | 0.91 | 0.56 | 0.95 | 0.98 | |
| Behavioral/cognitive | ||||||
| More confident in abilities | 0.45 | 0.62 | 0.11 | 0.06 | 0.88 | |
| Taught you how to deal with difficulties | 0.56 | 0.82 | 0.30 | 0.04 | 0.87 | |
Note: Item response probabilities higher than 0.50 are highlighted to facilitate interpretation. The conditional probability of not endorsing the item can be obtained by subtracting the probability of endorsing it from 1. The “significance” of bold items is explained in the note (“item response probabilities higher than 0.50 are highlighted to facilitate interpretation”). These are not regression coefficients significant at p <0.05, etc; they are item response probabilities from latent class analysis.