Characteristics, Experiences, and Perceptions of Family Members of Sex Trafficking Specialty Court Participants: An Exploratory Qualitative Inquiry

Our main objective was to assess patient and family members' perception of bad news communication in the emergency department (ED) and compare these with physicians' perceptions. This is a cross-sectional study carried out at the ED of a tertiary teaching hospital. To compare physicians' and receivers' (patient and/or family member) perceptions, we created a survey based on the six attributes derived from the SPIKES protocol. The surveys were applied immediately after communication of bad news occurred in the ED. We analyzed agreement among participants using κ-statistics and the χ-test to compare proportions. A total of 73 bad news communication encounters were analyzed. The survey respondents were 73 physicians, 69 family members, and four patients. In general, there is a low level of agreement between physicians' and receivers' perceptions of how breaking bad news transpired. The satisfaction level of receivers, in terms of breaking bad news by doctors, presented a mean of 3.7±0.6 points. In contrast, the physicians' perception of the communication was worse (2.9±0.6 points), with P value less than 0.001. Doctors and receivers disagree in relation to what transpired throughout bad news communications. Discrepancies were more evident in issues involving emotion, invitation, and privacy. An important agreement between perceptions was found in technical and knowledge-related aspects of the communication.

OBJECTIVEWe used a mixed-methods approach to explore the relationships between participants’ perceptions of family members’ diabetes self-care knowledge, family members’ diabetes-specific supportive and nonsupportive behaviors, and participants’ medication adherence and glycemic control (A1C).RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSAdults with type 2 diabetes participated in focus group sessions that discussed barriers and facilitators to diabetes management (n = 45) and/or completed surveys (n = 61) to collect demographic information, measures of diabetes medication adherence, perceptions of family members’ diabetes self-care knowledge, and perceptions of family members’ diabetes-specific supportive and nonsupportive behaviors. Most recent A1C was extracted from the medical record.RESULTSPerceiving family members were more knowledgeable about diabetes was associated with perceiving family members performed more diabetes-specific supportive behaviors, but was not associated with perceiving family members performed fewer nonsupportive behaviors. Perceiving family members performed more nonsupportive behaviors was associated with being less adherent to one’s diabetes medication regimen, and being less adherent was associated with worse glycemic control. In focus groups, participants discussed family member support and gave examples of family members who were informed about diabetes but performed sabotaging or nonsupportive behaviors.CONCLUSIONSParticipant reports of family members’ nonsupportive behaviors were associated with being less adherent to one’s diabetes medication regimen. Participants emphasized the importance of instrumental help for diabetes self-care behaviors and reported that nonsupportive family behaviors sabotaged their efforts to perform these behaviors. Interventions should inform family members about diabetes and enhance their motivation and behavioral skills around not interfering with one's diabetes self-care efforts.

Palliative and hospice care are increasingly being provided in nursing home settings. The current article reviews the existing evidence relevant to nursing homes to provide practitioners with a greater understanding of the impact of palliative and hospice care on clinical care outcomes (e.g., pain, symptom management), processes of care outcomes (e.g., hospitalizations, cost of care), and family member or health care proxy perceptions of care. Overall, the provision of hospice or palliative care in nursing facilities can improve the clinical care residents receive, reduce hospitalizations, and improve family members' perception of care.

Young adults with opioid use disorder (OUD) have low engagement and retention in medication treatment. Families are uniquely situated to play an important role in treatment decisions. This qualitative study explored how young adults with OUD perceive their families' beliefs about OUD and medication treatment, and how those beliefs impacted young adults' beliefs about their own treatment decisions. We conducted a qualitative study of a convenience sample of 20 English-speaking young adults with OUD receiving care from an urban safety net hospital in Massachusetts. We explored young adults' perceptions of how families viewed medication treatment. We conducted semi-structured interviews that were recorded and transcribed. We analyzed interviews using hybrid inductive and deductive categorization to support thematic analysis. We identified 3 themes. First, family history of substance use disorder and treatment negatively impacted how young adults perceive their OUD and medication treatment. Second, young adults shared that many families held negative or stigmatizing views of medication treatment. Finally, acceptance by family was important but young adults acknowledged that keeping treatment decisions from family was sometimes necessary. In this qualitative exploration of young adults with OUD, we found that young adults felt that their families held important beliefs about the kind of treatment family members found most appropriate, and these perceived family beliefs impacted their treatment choices. Future research to improve engagement and retention of youth adults with OUD could target the beliefs of family members.

Background Research evidence supports the positive impact on resident outcomes of nurse practitioners (NPs) working in long term care (LTC) homes. There are few studies that report the perceptions of residents and family members about the role of the NP in these settings. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of residents and family members regarding the role of the NP in LTC homes. Methods The study applied a qualitative descriptive approach. In-depth individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 35 residents and family members from four LTC settings that employed a NP. Conventional content analysis was used to identify themes and sub-themes. Results Two major themes were identified: NPs were seen as providing resident and family-centred care and as providing enhanced quality of care. NPs established caring relationships with residents and families, providing both informational and emotional support, as well as facilitating their participation in decision making. Residents and families perceived the NP as improving availability and timeliness of care and helping to prevent unnecessary hospitalization. Conclusions The perceptions of residents and family members of the NP role in LTC are consistent with the concepts of person-centred and relationship-centred care. The relationships NPs develop with residents and families are a central means through which enhanced quality of care occurs. Given the limited use of NPs in LTC settings, there is an opportunity for health care policy and decision makers to address service inadequacies through strategic deployment of NPs in LTC settings. NPs can use their expert knowledge and skill to assist residents and families to make informed choices regarding their health care and maintain a positive care experience

BackgroundResearch evidence supports the positive impact on resident outcomes of nurse practitioners (NPs) working in long term care (LTC) homes. There are few studies that report the perceptions of residents and family members about the role of the NP in these settings. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of residents and family members regarding the role of the NP in LTC homes.MethodsThe study applied a qualitative descriptive approach. In-depth individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 35 residents and family members from four LTC settings that employed a NP. Conventional content analysis was used to identify themes and sub-themes.ResultsTwo major themes were identified: NPs were seen as providing resident and family-centred care and as providing enhanced quality of care. NPs established caring relationships with residents and families, providing both informational and emotional support, as well as facilitating their participation in decision making. Residents and families perceived the NP as improving availability and timeliness of care and helping to prevent unnecessary hospitalization.ConclusionsThe perceptions of residents and family members of the NP role in LTC are consistent with the concepts of person-centred and relationship-centred care. The relationships NPs develop with residents and families are a central means through which enhanced quality of care occurs. Given the limited use of NPs in LTC settings, there is an opportunity for health care policy and decision makers to address service inadequacies through strategic deployment of NPs in LTC settings. NPs can use their expert knowledge and skill to assist residents and families to make informed choices regarding their health care and maintain a positive care experience.

Background Research evidence supports the positive impact on resident outcomes of nurse practitioners (NPs) working in long term care (LTC) homes. There are few studies that report the perceptions of residents and family members about the role of the NP in these settings. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of residents and family members regarding the role of the NP in LTC homes. Methods The study applied a qualitative descriptive approach. In-depth individual and focus group interviews were conducted with 35 residents and family members from four LTC settings that employed a NP. Conventional content analysis was used to identify themes and sub-themes. Results Two major themes were identified: NPs were seen as providing resident and family-centred care and as providing enhanced quality of care. NPs established caring relationships with residents and families, providing both informational and emotional support, as well as facilitating their participation in decision making. Residents and families perceived the NP as improving availability and timeliness of care and helping to prevent unnecessary hospitalization. Conclusions The perceptions of residents and family members of the NP role in LTC are consistent with the concepts of person-centred and relationship-centred care. The relationships NPs develop with residents and families are a central means through which enhanced quality of care occurs. Given the limited use of NPs in LTC settings, there is an opportunity for health care policy and decision makers to address service inadequacies through strategic deployment of NPs in LTC settings. NPs can use their expert knowledge and skill to assist residents and families to make informed choices regarding their health care and maintain a positive care experience

The needs and preferences of family members of adults with mental illness are diverse and varied. Consequently, these families may benefit from ongoing provision of information and support tailored to meet the families' individual needs. Continued efforts should be made to understand and address consumer and family needs, potential barriers to participation in family services, and the relationship between stigma and family need.

The objective of this article is to provide a summary of the perceptions of healthcare providers and family members toward their role in active patient care in the ICU and compare the views of healthcare providers with those of relatives of critically ill patients. The search was conducted using PubMed as the primary search engine and EMBASE as a secondary search engine. Studies were included if they were conducted in the ICU, had an adult patient population, and contained a discussion of active patient care, including perspective or actions of family members or healthcare providers about the active participation. Titles and abstracts of articles identified through PubMed and EMBASE were assessed for relevancy of family involvement. The full article was reviewed of titles and abstracts involving family involvement of care in the ICU to assess if the topic was active care and if the article involved perceptions of healthcare providers or family members. The references of all selected articles were then evaluated for the inclusion of additional studies. Articles including perceptions of healthcare providers were grouped separately from articles including attitudes of family members. Articles that contained the perceptions of both healthcare providers and family members were considered in both groups but were evaluated with each perspective separately. Examples of specific patient care tasks that were mentioned in each article were identified. A positive attitude exists among both family members and providers toward the involvement of family members in active care tasks. Providers and family members share the attitude that a partnership is necessary and that encouragement for family members to participate is essential. The findings in this review support the need for more objective research regarding how families are caring for their loved ones and how family involvement in care is affecting patient and family outcomes.

Family members as informal caregivers are considered the first line of support for people with dementia across the world. In Singapore, caregiving expectations revolve around the cultural expectations of providing care in the home environment. However, studies in Singapore have identified a lack of family support for primary caregivers. Family support has been discussed in the literature as the provision of care for people with dementia, and rarely as a resource for family caregivers. To understand family support among primary caregivers in Singapore, 24 semi-structured interviews were conducted. Thematic analysis found four themes: excuses for lack of physical support for the caregiver, tensions between cultural expectations of caregiving and the provision of support, unmet emotional support, and lack of awareness of dementia and caregiving needs. Caregivers rationalized and forgave the absence of physical support but were frustrated when the lack of support impacted people with dementia. This was seen as a lack of fulfilling cultural obligations of caring for elderly parents. The caregivers also felt frustrated with the lack of emotional support provided to them, but these were unspoken between the caregiver and the family members. Insufficient and unhelpful support giving was exacerbated with the perception of family members' limited understanding of the demands of caregiving. The findings offer four practical suggestions to address unmet support needs. First, public education is needed to enhance general knowledge about the symptoms and progression of dementia. Second, help is needed to address miscommunication about support within the family. Third, the development of guidebooks is needed to help family caregivers communicate with family members about their various support needs. Fourth, the relationship between cultural expectation and caregiving must be understood within the context of modernity and urbanism.

Understanding caregiver's perceptions of their family member's memory loss is a necessary step in planning nursing interventions to detect and address caregiver burden. The purpose of this study was to characterize caregivers' perceptions of their family members' memory loss and identify potential correlates within Leventhal's common sense model (CSM). This secondary analysis used baseline data from a larger randomized controlled trial. Patients with memory loss and their caregivers (N = 83 dyads) from the community were included. The adapted Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ) assessed caregivers' illness perceptions. Eight additional instruments measured correlates within the CSM. Responses were described; multiple linear regression was used to predict BIPQ dimension scores, and logistic regression was used to predict dichotomized BIPQ scores. Most caregivers were female, White, and spouses of the patients; they reported a range of perceptions on the nine BIPQ dimensions. Patients' cognitive function consistently emerged as a significant correlate of caregivers' illness perceptions, explaining the most variance in caregivers' perceived consequences, identity, and treatment control (p < .01). Caregivers' reactions to patients' behavioral symptoms and caregivers' trait anxiety were associated with perceived illness coherence (p < .01). Caregivers with higher severity of daily hassles and White caregivers perceived that their family members' memory loss would last longer (p < .001). Caregivers' perceptions of family members' memory loss varied; distinct dimensions of caregivers' illness perception were associated with a range of clinical and psychosocial factors. This exploratory study demonstrates the complexity of applying the CSM to caregivers of persons with memory loss.

Currently, there is a growing concern of families with adolescent children in relation to psychopathological conditions that are organized around food compulsions, such as Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa, the two best-known types of eating disorders (EDs). In the care setting, it is very common for family members to be fragile, with feelings of helplessness and impotence in the face of a type of severe and persistent psychic suffering that affects their children, whose symptoms are often refractory to improvement. The distress is enhanced by the persistence of defenses and symptoms that tend to take a chronic course, causing serious damage to the development of adolescents, imposing stressors that also make family ties vulnerable. Specialized services are still scarce in our country, creating a barrier that adds to others, such as the inadequacy of knowledge and practices aimed at welcoming families who manage to have access to professional help. In this aspect, a gap observed in the production of knowledge refers to the potential of linking dynamics as a therapeutic tool when using the group strategy as a device for welcoming family members. In view of these considerations, this Dissertation is divided into five articles, composed of a synthesis of qualitative studies and four empirical articles. Article 1, which consists of a qualitative meta-synthesis, aims to synthesize and reinterpret results of primary qualitative studies about the perception of family members of people with EDs about treatment. From 1115 studies originally retrieved from six databases, 19 articles were selected that involved family members as participants. The results point to different frameworks of perception of family members about the treatment for EDs, converging to the recognition that the family is an active part of the process and should also be considered as a target of care, and not as a mere adjunct/companion in the care of the person stricken. Articles 2, 3, 4 and 5 derive from an empirical research whose general objective is to investigate whether, and how, the linking dynamics established in a psychological support group for family members of people with EDs enhance the development of resources to deal with the problems experienced. The intentional sample of the empirical studies consisted of five mothers and three fathers who participated in the weekly group activity from June to September 2020. The corpus consisted of 26 individual interviews carried out immediately after carrying out 13 consecutive group sessions. The instruments used for data collection were: sociodemographic data form, Economic Classification Criteria (CCEB), individual interview script based on the Critical Incident Technique and field diary. The interviews were audio-recorded and fully transcribed. Data were analyzed according to the inductive thematic content analysis, proposed by Braun and Clarke, and interpreted using psychoanalysis as a theoretical framework in working with groups in institutions from Pichon-Rivire's perspective, in dialogue with the contributions of Ren Kas. The results obtained converge to a perception of the configuration of the group as a space of care valued by family members of people with EDs. Mothers and fathers were able to dismantle the idea that the group is just another element of the treatment of the child affected by disorder, to be understood as a process that allows contact with their own emotions, providing the integration of feeling, thinking and acting of the family caregiver.

Background: Family collaboration is the interactive coordination between family members aimed towards achieving a common goal and putting individual differences aside. The collaboration received from the family makes the pregnant woman feel valued. However, family members have been identified as not collaborating in meeting basic needs of the pregnant woman. They have been found to maltreat pregnant women, by giving them chronic house-hold chores, depriving them of food and blocking access to health care. The study creates awareness on involvement of family in caring for the pregnant woman. The educational pamphlet developed, serves as educational resource on usefulness of family collaboration during pregnancy. Objectives: To explore family collaboration during pregnancy from the perspectives of family members of pregnant women, as well as also to develop an educational pamphlet from the findings to enhance family collaboration. Method: Qualitative research, using open-ended questionnaire. Fourteen family members participated, until data became saturated. Content analysis method by Erlingsson and Brysiewicz, was used in analyzing data, as this is well suited for qualitative analysis. Questionnaires were read thoroughly, and texts were formed into meaning units, these were concisely condensed while retaining the core meaning, the units were labeled by formulating codes. Codes related were formulated into Categories. The categories formed the themes of the pamphlet. Result: The findings are presented in form of a pamphlet that has been attached as a download to this article (refer to Download pamphlet). Conclusion: The study described perceptions of family members on family collaboration, through the categories that emerged from the findings and the pamphlet highlight ways that family can support a pregnant member during pregnancy.

The aim of the study was to explore problem drug and alcohol users' perceptions of family members' coping in a cross‐sectional interview study of problem drug and alcohol users, using a long semi‐structured interview. Participants comprised nine problem drinkers, five problem drug users and one problem drug and alcohol user (two‐thirds male). Detailed qualitative analysis of interview reports suggested that drug and alcohol users have clear ideas regarding family members' coping. Coping strategies which encompass clear elements of concern for them appear to be well‐received, in particular supportive coping and, in some cases, assertive coping. Controlling coping may be viewed positively by drug and alcohol users provided it is used in conjunction with supportive coping, thereby indicating concern. Furthermore, results suggested that users found all other forms of coping such as emotional, tolerant, inactive and avoidance to be unsupportive, the only exception being tolerant coping, which was found to be supportive when drug and alcohol users had no intention of altering their use. Drug and alcohol users' perceptions of family members' coping may be viewed in terms of the stress‐coping model. Drug and alcohol users appreciate supportive coping actions, while coping strategies which involve family members withdrawing from them, making them feel guilty or forcing them to take actions against their will are felt to be unsupportive. The findings have implications for the way in which family members are advised to cope, not only in terms of their own physical and psychological well‐being, but also in terms of how their actions are perceived by the users themselves.

Association of Family and Health Care Provider Opinion on Infant Feeding with Mother's Breastfeeding Decision