Article Text
Abstract
Introduction The literature on health outcomes of unpaid care work has included studies coming from high-income countries, and has reported gender inequalities that make caregiving women more vulnerable to physical and mental health problems. The impact of unpaid care work on the health of those living in low-income and middle-income countries, where women’s autonomy is more limited, is unknown.
Methods and analysis We will conduct a systematic review of observational studies on health outcomes according to unpaid caregiving status and sex of people living in low-income and middle-income countries. Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PubMed and Scientific Electronic Library Online Citation Index will be searched for reports in English or Spanish with published results from inception to 1 June 2017. We expect the studies to have recruited individuals in low-income and middle-income countries, including exposed and non-exposed groups to participation in unpaid care to members if their households or community reporting either physical and/or mental health problems, self-reported health-related quality of life, self-care skills/behaviours or use of any healthcare services in the participants. Data extraction, the assessment of risk of bias and confounding, and qualitative synthesis will be carried out by two independent reviewers with the assistance of a third party.
Dissemination Results are expected to be published in peer-reviewed journals from the field of health and gender, or health and inequality.
PROSPERO registration number CRD42017071785.
- unpaid care work
- health outcomes
- systematic review
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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Footnotes
Contributors IM is the guarantor of this systematic review and provides her expert opinion during the reviewing process; PM and M-SL gave valuable input to the design of this systematic review, and will be in charge of the data extraction and risk of bias assessment under the supervision of IM. All authors will contribute equally to data synthesis. All authors edited, modified and approved the final version of this manuscript.
Funding This systematic review is financed by the Office of Scientific and Technological Research (DICYT) of the Vice-Rector of Research, Development and Innovation at the University of Santiago of Chile, through Projects 021793MF_CONT and 031693MF.
Disclaimer The funding institution is not involved in any part of this study.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.