Table 2.

Contextual constructs captured in the baseline and follow-up surveys and their expected association with care-related QoL.

Contextual constructs∗	Included in:			Expected association with care-related QoL∗
	Baseline survey	Follow-up survey	Hypothesis development
Related to the carer
Age	✓	×	✓	Negative†
Gender	✓	×	✓	Negative
Ethnicity	✓	×	×	×
Educational qualification	✓	×	×	×
Occupation	✓	✓	✓	Positive‡
Impacts on occupation as a result of caring	✓	×	×	×
Self-rated life satisfaction	✓	✓	✓	Positive
Related to the care recipient
Age	✓	×	✓	Positive§
Gender	✓	×	✓	Negative
Cognitive difficulties and daily dependencies	✓	✓	✓	Negative
Health status	✓	✓	✓	Positive
Anticipated direction of health status	✓	✓	✓	Negative
Related to the caring situation
Co-residence	✓	✓	✓	Negative
Number of people who live with the carer	✓	✓	×	×
Relationship	✓	×	✓	Negative
Duration of caring	✓	×	✓	Negative§
Hours of care per week	✓	✓	✓	Negative
Time spent on specific care activities	✓	✓	✓	Negative
Perception of spillover effects from health and social care interventions	✓	×	×	×
Main carer	✓	×	✓	Negative
Involvement of others in the caring	✓	×	✓	Positive
Alternative ways they could spend their time	×	✓	×	×

QoL indicates quality of life.

^∗Key evidence for construct and hypothesis development.^{3,20,22,35,38,47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53}

^†Negative association expected for each condition with the exception of stroke (positive association expected).⁴⁵

^‡Positive association expected for each condition with the exception of stroke and mental health (negative association expected).^22,46

^§Negative association expected for each condition with the exception of stroke (positive association expected).