Family caring plays an essential role in Ireland’s health system, but it does place social, financial, physical, and emotional demands on carers. Caring by older people has benefits for health and longevity when providing lower hours of care. Less is known about why some carers seem to manage better than others with regards their long-term well-being. Understanding what carers need to support them is key to facilitating family care. Some of these differences in mental health and well-being observed between carers may be an indicator of how individuals differ in how they adapt to changing circumstances and their ability to maintain or recover their mental health and well-being following an adverse event (psychosocial resilience). Using nationally representative longitudinal data on adults aged ≥54 years in Ireland from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) we will measure the prevalence and incidence of caring and using Growth Mixture Modelling, examine trajectories of mental health and well-being, and identify resilient trajectories where well-being is either maintained or recovers (psychosocial resilience) following transition into or out of caring. Regression modelling will be used to determine protective factors (individual, family, and community level) associated with resilient trajectories and how it is interrelated with the care-recipient’s needs. We will also investigate the importance of resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether these trajectories and responses differ by gender in Ireland. Qualitative data collected through focus groups will explore the importance of how resilience and social and formal care service supports interrelates with the needs of both the carer and the care recipient to understand how services and programmes can be strengthened to best support older carers. These results will inform the priorities for social and community-level services and supports for carers and aid in the design of new projects and programs to meet these needs.
