Informal care

People in the Netherlands provide help on a large scale to other members of their household, relatives and friends who are temporarily chronically ill or who are dying. This report describes what informal carers do, why they provide help, what support they receive and how providing help affects them in both a positive and a negative sense. In some cases, providing help is a heavy burden, for example for informal carers who find providing the care to be very taxing or who themselves encounter health problems.

This does not mean that providing informal care has only negative consequences. On the contrary: the majority of carers find it to be a positive experience, because providing help makes the relationship with the care recipient more intense and more intimate, because the carer receives appreciation from the person they are caring for and because they are able to enjoy little things together.