Table 2.

Factors associated with caregivers’ frequent use of the internet to access digital support services in the bivariate analysis

Variables	Using the internet at least several times per month to access digital support services
	Italian sample n=410		Swedish sample n=253
	n (%)	P value*	n (%)	P value
All respondents	274 (66.8)		137 (54.2)
Gender		0.123		0.344
Male	56 (60.2)†		34 (59.6)
Female	218 (68.8)		103 (52.6)
Age		0.01		0.035
18–39	23 (47.9)		6 (35.3)
40–59	169 (70.1)		50 (64.9)
More than 60	82 (67.8)		81 (50.9)
Health status		0.042		0.268
Good	37 (54.4)		35 (63.6)
Fair	115 (67.3)		79 (51.0)
Poor	122 (71.3)		23 (53.5)
Education		0.008		0.901
Primary	12 (41.4)		20 (57.1)
Secondary	161 (71.6)		60 (52.6)
Bachelor’s degree	76 (66.7)		32 (52.5)
Higher than bachelor’s degree	25 (59.5)		25 (58.1)
Income		0.025		0.736
Lower	32 (82.1)		10 (58.8)
Middle	110 (70.1)		47 (51.1)
Upper	132 (61.7)		80 (55.6)
Care recipient relationship to caregiver		<0.001		0.014
Parents (in law)	95 (58.3)		23 (36.5)
Spouse/partner	49 (76.6)		55 (56.7)
Child	88 (83.8)		33 (68.8)
Friend/neighbour	16 (53.3)		15 (57.7)
Other	26 (54.2)		11 (57.9)
Gender of care recipient		<0.001		0.732
Male	141 (75.4)		75 (55.1)
Female	133 (59.6)		62 (53.0)
Age of care recipient		0.002		0.037
60 or younger	121 (75.6)		47 (64.4)
More than 60	153 (61.2)		90 (50.0)
Level of dependency of the care recipient		0.032		0.853
High dependency	228 (69.3)		76 (54.7)
Low dependency	46 (56.8)		61 (53.5)
Hours spend caring each week		<0.001		0.022
10 hours or less	57 (49.6)		49 (43.8)
11–20 hours	46 (67.6)		38 (61.3)
21–40 hours	38 (66.7)		17 (56.7)
More than 40 hours	133 (78.2)		33 (67.3)
No of years providing care		0.464		0.213
2 years or less	79 (64.2)		65 (58.6)
More than 2 years	195 (67.9)		72 (50.7)

*Differences between groups were considered significant at the 5% level (p≤0.05).

†Male caregivers who are frequently using the internet as a % of the total number of male caregivers in the sample.