Abstract
There is a lack of service provision for young adult caregivers (18–25 years of age). This study aims to describe the expectations and prospects of young adult caregivers regarding support from health and education professionals. A qualitative focus group design was used. Twenty-five young Dutch adults (aged 18–25 years) who were growing up with a chronically ill family member participated in one of seven focus groups. Qualitative inductive analysis was used to identify codes and main themes. Two overarching themes with five sub-themes emerged from the focus group discussions. The overarching themes are: the ‘process of approaching young adults’ and the ‘types of support these young adults require’. The process of approaching young adults contains the sub-themes: ‘recognition, attention, and listening’, ‘open-minded attitude’, ‘reliability’, and ‘respecting autonomy’. The types of support this group requires contains the sub-themes: ‘information and emotional support’. Health and education professionals should first and foremost be aware and listen to young adult caregivers, pay attention to them, have an open-minded attitude, respect their autonomy, and have the knowledge to provide them with information and emotional support. Further research could yield comprehensive insights into how professionals can meet these requirements and whether these results apply to male young adult caregivers and young adult caregivers not enrolled in a healthcare-related study program.
Highlights
Growing up with a chronically ill family member can have a negative impact in terms of mental health problems [1], stress, problems in the parent–child relationship, developmental problems, and poorer school results [2,3]
This finding has been established in various studies [3,7,8,9], which found that a lack of recognition and attention for this target group resulted in being overlooked by professionals, whereas these young carers longed for support
Young adults growing up with a chronically ill family member clearly indicated that professionals need to recognize young adult carers as a group requiring specific attention
Summary
Growing up with a chronically ill family member can have a negative impact in terms of mental health problems [1], stress, problems in the parent–child relationship, developmental problems, and poorer school results [2,3]. Young adults up to the age of 25 growing up with a chronically ill family member are an under-identified age bracket that faces challenges [4]. Their vulnerability is twofold, defined by both their life stage and their family situation. The life stage of young adults is characterized by change and the exploration and development of their own identity [5]. Public Health 2020, 17, 4299; doi:10.3390/ijerph17124299 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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