Is more care recipient time at home also a family caregiver‐centered quality of life measure?

Abstract Background Time in healthcare facilities is associated with worse patient quality of life (QoL); however, impact on family caregiver QoL is unknown. We evaluate care recipient days not at home—days in the emergency department (ED), inpatient (IP) care, and post‐acute care (PAC)—to understand how care recipient days not at home correspond to family caregiver QoL. Methods Secondary data were linked to care recipient utilization data. Elastic net machine learning models were used to evaluate the impact of a single day of utilization in each setting on binary QoL outcomes. We also compared composite weighted and unweighted “days not at home” variables. Two time periods, 6 and 18 months, were used to predict three caregiver QoL measures (self‐rated health, depressive symptoms, and subjective burden). Results In the 6‐month timeframe, a single day of ED utilization was associated with increased likelihood of poor QoL for all three assessed outcomes (range: 1.4%–3.2%). A day of PAC was associated to a modest degree with increased likelihood of caregiver burden (0.2%) and depressive symptoms (0.1%), with a slight protective effect for self‐rated health (−0.1%). An IP day had a slight protective effect (−0.2 to −0.1%). At 18 months, ED and IP had similar, albeit more muted, relationships with caregiver burden and depressive symptoms. PAC had a slight protective effect for caregiver burden (−0.1%). Cumulative days in all settings combined generally was not associated with caregiver QoL. Conclusion Whereas total care recipient time away from home had some negative spillovers to family caregivers, the countervailing effects of unique settings on caregiver QoL may mask net QoL effects. This finding limits the utility of a single care recipient home time measure as a valid caregiver‐centered measure. Considering cumulative care recipient time in individual settings separately may be needed to reveal the true net effects on caregiver QoL.