Individuals in the millennial and generation Z (Gen Z) age groups represent a swelling proportion of today’s family caregivers. They face unique challenges when providing support for hospice patients compared to others, recent research has found.

Millennials include adults born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s, some of whom are as old as the Medicare Hospice Benefit. Gen Zers include those born between 1997 and 2012. These generations share similar emotional and financial caregiving stressors, according to a recent study from the Transcend Strategy Group.

Understanding the competing, complex priorities of these generations is pivotal for hospices’ ability to deliver quality care, according to Nicole McCann-Davis, senior client advisor and research director at Transcend Strategy Group.

“More and more people as members of these two particular generations are responsible for making health care decisions,” McCann-Davis told Hospice News. “So, it’s important when developing strategic plans that these also integrate and take into consideration those particular generations of family caregivers. It’s shifting that narrative for people in caregiving roles for their parents and also raising kids. It’s more to consider as health care providers evolve and expand our understanding of who the audience is.”

Gen Z and millennial generations comprise a combined 42% of the overall population in the United States, reported Statista.

These two generations were examined in the 400 caregivers who participated in the Transcend study. More than two-thirds (67%) of the caregiver respondents indicated that they had been directly involved with making health care decisions for an aging adult or someone living with a serious illness during the past five years.

Nearly all, or 90%, of the study participants stated that being a caregiver was mentally and emotionally draining. Additionally, 84% shared that caring for a seriously ill loved one created financial strains.

While many caregivers contend with emotional and financial distress, these issues can present unique challenges for younger, “sandwich” generations caring for loved ones during particularly vulnerable points in life, McCann-Davis indicated.

“It’s about really trying to gain a better understanding of the many responsibilities a family caregiver is juggling and how family caregivers are in different populations,” McCann-Davis said. “Their concerns are really about being prepared to be the best possible family caregiver and making sure they have the resources and information needed. It’s sitting down and really asking those open-ended questions and allowing them to feel heard and seen by the hospice team. That’s incredibly important.”

Feeling validated and having options to high-quality care were two of the three main themes identified. About 22% of the caregiver respondents valued having access to highly-trained staff, while 15% indicated that support for the family alongside patient services was important in a hospice provider. Additionally, about 10% of the study participants indicated that they value hospice providers who offered specialized care for specific health conditions.

Collaborative caregiving was among the three leading priorities identified by the study respondents, with the majority citing care collaboration as a main challenge. Only 25% of the caregiver participants indicated that their opinions were respected by health care professionals.

Representation was also key. More than half of the caregiver participants stated that it was important that the hospice care was provided by people of a similar cultural background as the patient.

Hospices have to evolve their marketing and community education and outreach strategies to better reach and support Millennial and Gen Z caregiver generations, according to McCann-Davis.

These generations seek out caregiver resources in varied ways, with more than one-quarter of the Transcend study participants indicating that social media content creators were a preferred avenue of information around things such as pain and symptom management or wound care. The majority of the caregiver respondents preferred to have verbal conversations with interdisciplinary care teams, the study found.

The findings suggest that social media is becoming a broader part of a hospices’ communication strategies and caregiver support, but also how they build a reputation for quality, McCann-Davis said.

Social media can play an important role in dispelling common misconceptions about hospice, she added. Roughly 33% of the study participants stated that they thought hospice care hastens death.

“It’s very interesting to see the evolution of where and how people are wanting to receive their information about caregiving for seriously ill adults,” McCann-Davis told Hospice News. “People are seeking out trusted content creators to share this information. For better or worse, we’re seeing more people searching out these social media platforms to really try to understand all the resources. It’s also about reputation management for a quality care provider. Providers should be responding to or addressing concerns raised in those social media channels, because that’s another way of ensuring a positive experience or showing that you’re very responsive to the needs being expressed.”