CareFit

CareFit is a research project based within Computer and Information Sciences and the Physical Activity for Health Group at the University of Strathclyde. Our mission is to support as many caregivers as possible with their health and wellbeing.

Informal Caregivers: caring in the community

"A carer is anyone, including children and adults who looks after a family member, partner or friend who needs help because of their illness, frailty, disability, a mental health problem or an addiction and cannot cope without their support. The care they give is unpaid."

NHS England - NHS commissioning - Who is Considered a Carer

In the U.K alone approximately 1 in 8 adults is an informal carer (6.5 million people in the UK) and this group saves the UK £132 billion per year. Unfortunately, many carers do not keep well, with 72% of carers saying they suffer mental ill health and 61% of carers saying that they suffer physical ill health (Carers UK Statistics).

Physical activity

As UK national survey data reports suggest that approximately 81% of carers would like to do more physical activity, our primary interest is around improving the levels of physical activity in caregivers including though the use of novel digital approaches such as mobile apps. This is to encourage physical activity for all caregivers regardless of their recent experience or ability.

You can read more about our work in our Publication in JMIR Formative Research, but the premise is to take together national physical activity guidelines, models of behavioural change and to build a personalised, trustworthy, and reliable resource that carers can use regularly.

Current activity

As a research group we are cognisant that digital technologies hold much potential for all, but that asking citizens/carers to get involved in research is a must. We are therefore currently working with a wide array of different “co-designers” to test our evolving concept, ideas and software developed.

We are excited to share further information on this project later in 2023, and to be kept up to date please follow the Twitter Handle from the University of Strathclyde @Carers_strath. Alternatively, please email Dr Kieren Egan (Kieren.Egan@Strath.ac.uk)