Spotlight on TILDA: Advancing Research to Support Carers in Ireland
Posted on 13 June 2025
TILDA continues to play a pivotal role in shaping how we understand and support family carers in Ireland. Through over a decade of research, TILDA has helped uncover some of the realities faced by those providing unpaid care, often family members, within an ageing population and evolving social structures.
Early research using TILDA data, including The impact of being the intermediate caring generation and intergenerational transfers on self-reported health of women in Ireland (2014), found that women providing care to both ageing parents and children, the so-called “sandwich generation,” faced increased risks to their mental health. Financial support to children was linked to improved self-rated health, while caregiving for parents was associated with greater depressive symptoms. These findings offered an early and important look into the health implications of intergenerational caregiving.
More recently, the 2020 report Receipt of Care and Caring in Community-Dwelling Adults Aged 50 and Over in Ireland highlighted that the majority of care for older adults with functional limitations is provided by family members, particularly spouses. While low-intensity caregiving, up to 50 hours per week, was associated with positive wellbeing outcomes, high-intensity caregiving was linked to increased depressive symptoms, chronic pain, and reduced mobility.
In 2023, Dr Christine McGarrigle led the publication of An Investigation of What Protective Individual- and Community-Level Factors Are Associated With Life Satisfaction in Middle-Aged and Older Family Carers in Ireland in Frontiers in Public Health. Using six waves of TILDA data, the study identified distinct wellbeing trajectories among carers. Most were able to maintain or recover their life satisfaction over time, with protective factors including lower depressive symptoms, lower care intensity, and strong social networks.
Building on this evidence base, Dr McGarrigle is now Principal Investigator on a number of significant projects. These include a study funded by Family Carers Ireland and the Health Research Board examining resilience in carers, and two NIH-funded studies focused on improving estimates of mild cognitive impairment and dementia through the Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP). Most notably, she was recently awarded an NIH R01 grant for her study Psychosocial Resilience in Spousal Caregivers for Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias. This three-year project draws on data from both TILDA and HCAP to investigate mental health outcomes and resilience strategies among spousal caregivers internationally.
From foundational research on intergenerational transfers to cutting-edge studies in dementia care, TILDA’s contribution to understanding and supporting carers has been both consistent and impactful. These insights are essential for informing evidence-based policies and services that strengthen the wellbeing of carers across Ireland.