Skip to main content

Table 4 Characteristics of caregivers remaining in health plans after the deatha of the cancer patient

From: Health and resource burden of a cancer diagnosis on the caregiver: an analysis of administrative claims data

Characteristics at index date

Caregivers (N = 19,823)

Sex, n (%)b

 Female

9,776 (49.3)

 Male

10,047 (50.7)

Age at index, mean (standard deviation, SD) years

59.2 (11.1)

Health care payer type, n (%)

 Commercial

14,693 (74.1)

 Medicare

5,130 (25.9)

Health care plan type, n (%)

 Capitated

2,134 (10.8)

 Fee For Service

17,263 (87.1)

 Unknown/Missing

426 (2.1)

US geographic region, n (%)

 North Central

5,891 (29.7)

 North East

4,080 (20.6)

 South

6,993 (35.3)

 West

2,734 (13.8)

 Unknown/Missing

125 (0.6)

Employment status of primary policy holder, n (%)

 Employed

8,373 (42.2)

 Not Employed

5,503 (27.8)

 Unknown/missing

5,947 (30.0)

Charlson Comorbidity Index, mean (SD)

0.4 (1.0)

Number of unique medicationsd, mean (SD)

4.7 (4.6)

  1. aDeath was assumed based on the last observation of the cancer patient in the database
  2. b143 caregivers in this cohort cared for a cancer patient of the same sex
  3. bDeyo RA, Cherkin DC, Ciol MA. Adapting a clinical comorbidity index for use with ICD-9-CM administrative databases. Journal of clinical epidemiology. 1992 Jun 1;45(6):613-9