Better jobs for volunteers and family members: How do Informal Caregivers experience their Job Demands, Control and Support?
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2025-06-25
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en
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Due to the aging population and an increased reliance on non-professionals in the healthcare system, informal caregivers now play a crucial role in elderly-care in the Netherlands. However, high stress rates and time consuming workloads illustrate an unsustainable future for this solution to the increasing gap between care supply and demand, due to the straining conditions. A popular model to assess such job strain is the Job Demands-Control-Support model, which is an extension to Karasek’s Job Demands-Control model, both are widely used. The model proposes that job demands cause increased strain as a result of the work, whereas control and support help to decrease this strain. However, no attempt was found that translates this model, rooted in organizational psychology, to the conditions of informal caregivers. In a qualitative study with a hybrid design, this thesis aimed to explore how these concepts of demands, control and support are experienced by informal caregivers, through interviews. Using a thematic analysis, utilizing both deductive and inductive strategies, a comprehensive set of subthemes was identified, which were organized into themes, forming subdimensions for each main dimension. These results provide an accurate tool to evaluate caregiver strain, and therefore a framework to adequately decrease caregiver strain and improve the quality of care provided.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen