Adolescent young carers who provide help and support to friends

Brolin, Rosita (author), Hanson, Elizabeth (author), Magnusson, Lennart (author), Lewis, Feylyn Mercedies (author), Parkhouse, Tom (author), Hlebec, Valentina (author), Santini, Sara (author), Hoefman, Renske (author), Leu, Agnes (author), Becker, Saul (author)

Prior studies emphasize the value of friends’ support for children/adolescents who have a disability or suffer from mental ill-health or a long-term illness. However, few studies have explored how a caring role affects those young friend carers themselves. This paper addresses a gap in the research by focusing on this hitherto neglected group of young carers to explore the impact of providing care to friends. An online survey was employed for a cross-national study conducted in 2018–2019 in Sweden, Italy, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom to examine the incidence of adolescent young friend carers, the extent of care they provide, and their self-reported health, well-being, and school situation. The survey was completed by 7146 adolescents, aged 15–17, and 1121 of them provided care to a friend with a health-related condition, most frequently mental ill-health. They carried out high levels of caring activities, and a quarter of them also provided care to a family member. They experienced both positive and negative aspects of caring. Nevertheless, in comparison with adolescents who provided care to family members, they reported more health problems, with a dominance of mental ill-health, and they received lower levels of support. Since adolescent friends play a valuable role for young people with health-related conditions, especially mental ill-health, it is important to find ways of optimizing their caring experiences in order that those adolescents who choose to care for a friend can do so without it having a negative impact on their own mental health, well-being, and life situation.

• Language: English
• Keywords: young friend carer, young carer, school outcomes, health, well-being
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FDV - Faculty of Social Sciences
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 1-15
• Numbering: Vol. 11, issue 21, [article no.] 2876
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-152107-9e0cb48e-28c2-0368-6b11-3cc5bc6fabea
• UDC: 364-47-053.6
• ISSN on article: 2227-9032
• DOI: 10.3390/healthcare11212876
• COBISS.SI-ID: 170711811
• Publication date in RUL: 03.11.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Healthcare
• Shortened title: Healthcare
• Publisher: MDPI AG
• ISSN: 2227-9032
• COBISS.SI-ID: 520110873

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: dolgotrajna oskrba, najstniki, prijatelji, zdravje, dobro počutje

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: European Commission
• Project number: 754702
• Name: Psychosocial Support for Promoting Mental Health and Well-being among Adolescent Young Carers in Europe
• Acronym: ME-WE