Partnership in health care: views of family caregivers on sharing care responsibility with government, clients and health insurers.

In this study, we asked family caregivers about their opinion on division of care responsibility between the government, family caregivers, clients, and health insurers. We investigated whether different clusters of respondents could be distinguished, using Latent Cluster Analysis, and what is the relation is with perceived stress and joy and with several background characteristics. Three clusters of respondents could be distinguished: a 'caring together', a 'caring individually', and a 'government-responsible caring' cluster. Family caregivers in cluster 1 attach great importance to both governmental responsibility and individual responsibility. Family caregivers who belong to cluster 2 want themselves to take full responsibility for caregiving, and caregivers in cluster 3 want the government to take most of the responsibility for caregiving. Unemployed caregivers and caregivers with lower educational attainment have a higher chance to belong to the 'caring individually' cluster and this group has relatively more self-reported stress. Policymakers and professionals should bear these three clusters in mind when developing care policy and care guiding practice.