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Informal systems of care for the chronically mentally ill

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and functioning of informal caregiving systems of community-based chronically mentally ill individuals. From a sample of 409 family member reports, 150 caregiving systems are described in terms of size, composition and division of caregiving labor. Results show that these systems are about as large as those found for elder caregiving systems, that women and relatives predominate as caregivers, that there is considerable diversity in the types of caregivers and that size and composition are related to the division of labor observed in these systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Akron, 44325, Akron, OH

    Mark Tausig Ph.D.

  2. Social and Demographic Research Institute and Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA

    Gene A. Fisher Ph.D. & Richard C. Tessler Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Mark Tausig Ph.D.
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  2. Gene A. Fisher Ph.D.
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  3. Richard C. Tessler Ph.D.
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Additional information

The sample from which the data were obtained was provided from the Community Care Study of the National Evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Chronic Mental Illness (Howard H. Goldmann, Principal Investigator). Data were obtained through a grant from NIMH to Drs. Richard Tessler and Gene Fisher. The analysis was funded by the Ohio Department of Mental Health, Office of Program Evaluation and Research.

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Tausig, M., Fisher, G.A. & Tessler, R.C. Informal systems of care for the chronically mentally ill. Community Ment Health J 28, 413–425 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00761059

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