Capturing the Spatial Relatedness of Long-Distance Caregiving: A Mixed-Methods Approach

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Sep 2;17(17):6406. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17176406.

Abstract

Long-distance caregiving (LDC) is an issue of growing importance in the context of assessing the future of elder care and the maintenance of health and well-being of both the cared-for persons and the long-distance caregivers. Uncertainty in the international discussion relates to the relevance of spatially related aspects referring to the burdens of the long-distance caregiver and their (longer-term) willingness and ability to provide care for their elderly relatives. This paper is the result of a first attempt to operationalize and comprehensively analyze the spatial relatedness of long-distance caregiving against the background of the international literature by combining a longitudinal single case study of long-distance caregiving person and semantic hierarchies. In the cooperation of spatial sciences and geoinformatics an analysis grid based on a graph-theoretical model was developed. The elaborated conceptual framework should stimulate a more detailed and precise interdisciplinary discussion on the spatial relatedness of long-distance caregiving and, thus, is open for further refinement in order to become a decision-support tool for policy-makers responsible for social and elder care and health promotion. Moreover, it may serve as a starting point for the development of a method for the numerical determination of the long-distance caregivers on different spatial reference scales.

Keywords: graph theory; single case study; space–care nexus; spatial knowledge infrastructure; spatial semantics.

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Caregiver Burden
  • Caregivers*
  • Geography
  • Humans
  • Residence Characteristics*