ArticleBMC health services research2021
Cost analysis of informal care: estimates from a national cross-sectional survey in Sweden.
Article in BMC health services research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cost analysis of nurse-lead telephone follow-ups after benign hysterectomy: a randomized, single-blinded, four-arm, controlled multicenter trial.Archives of gynecology and obstetrics · 2025Trial
- Rehabilitation and care after hip fracture: a cost-utility analysis of stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial.Journal of rehabilitation medicine · 2024Trial
- Economic value of non-professional care in Spain. An analysis of the last decade.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2026Article
- Multicomponent School of Caring Program to Support Caregivers of Patients With Dementia: A Quasi-Experimental Effectiveness Study in Primary Care.Annals of family medicine · 2026Article
- Societal cost of frailty in Singapore: an overview to the cost of healthcare and informal caregiving for frail older adults by frailty status, a cross-sectional study.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Societal Economic Burden of Antibiotic Resistance in Uganda: A Cost of Illness Study.PharmacoEconomics - open · 2026Article
- The Making of a Good Carer: Dementia and Family Caregiving in an Era of Refamilization and Responsibilization in the Nordic Context.The Journal of medical humanities · 2026Article
- Cost analysis of financial, productivity, and informal care burdens in families raising children with congenital anomalies.Health economics review · 2026Article
- Societal costs for the closest family relatives of patients with brain disorders in Denmark: a population-based cohort study.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- How do women respond to increased care needs of their parents? The economic costs of informal caregiving.Journal of the economics of ageing · 2025Article
- Factors that influence the burden of the caregiver of cardiovascular patients. A multicenter study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Assessing the financial burden on patients and their households attending hospital clinics: a pilot cross-sectional study.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Core outcomes for the evaluation of new healthcare programmes - a modified Delphi study.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Time value of informal care of people with alzheimer's disease in Spain: a population-based analysis.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2025Article
- The Hidden Value of Adult Informal Care in Europe.Health economics · 2025Article
- Caregiver burden, psychological well-being, and support needs among Swedish informal caregivers.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Article
- The Economic Costs of Informal Care: Estimates from a National Cross-Sectional Survey in The Netherlands.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2024Article
- Trends over the past 15 years in long-term care in Switzerland: a comparison with Germany, Italy, Norway, and the United Kingdom.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- "It´s like walking in a bubble", nursing students´ perspectives on age suit simulation in a home environment - group interviews from reflection seminars.BMC nursing · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundOver the past decades, informal care has increased in most OECD-countries. Informal care is costly to caregivers and to society in the form of lost income and direct costs of providing care. Existing evidence suggests that providing informal care affects caregivers' overall health. However, estimates of the social costs of informal care based on national data on individuals are currently scarce.
objectiveThis study contributes to the existing evidence on the costs of informal care by estimating the direct and indirect costs to caregivers using a purposive national household survey from Sweden.
methodsAdopting a bottom-up, prevalence approach, the direct and indirect costs are estimated using the survey data and the value of working time and leisure time from existing sources.
resultsThe results suggest that around 15% of the adult population of Sweden provide informal care and that such care costs around SEK 152 billion per year (around 3% of GDP; USD 16,3 billion; EUR 14,5 billion), or SEK 128000 per caregiver. Around 55% of costs are in the form of income loss to caregivers. The largest cost items are reduced work hours and direct costs of providing informal care. Replacing informal caregivers with professional care providers would be costly at around SEK 193,6 billion per year.
conclusionsFindings indicate that, even in a country with a relatively generous welfare system, significant resources are allocated toward providing informal care. The costing analysis suggests that effective support initiatives to ease the burden of informal caregivers may be cost-effective.
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