Abstract
BackgroundCanada’s aging population is increasing, along with the number of caregivers providing support to seniors. Caregiving is a taxing responsibility that often results in loneliness and distress. Creating awareness of available supports for caregivers is essential for their health and to provide the best support to the care recipients. This study aims to better understand and improve the caregiving experience for caregivers from diverse ethnic communities and the LGBTQI2S+ communities. The goal is to improve the well-being and resilience of caregivers and optimize outcomes for care recipients by delivering educational workshops that resemble the design of existing workshops currently offered by the participating social service agency. Content will be adapted based on identified participant learning needs. These workshops will be offered to the English-speaking community, diverse newcomer ethnic groups and the LGBTQI2S+ community.MethodsThis mixed-methods, longitudinal study includes two streams of caregivers; Stream One consists of English-speaking caregivers and care recipients while Stream Two includes individuals from the Afghan, Iranian, Somali-, Tamil- and Spanish-speaking populations and those belonging to LGBTQI2S+ communities. Each stream has two phases; Phase One includes needs assessments using focus groups and semi-structured interviews with caregivers and care recipients while Phase Two includes a pre-test post-test evaluation of educational workshops. The anticipated sample size for Phase One is 30 caregivers from the English-speaking community, 150 from the five linguistic/cultural communities combined and 30 from the LGBTQI2S+ group. For Phase Two, we plan to recruit 250 caregivers from the English-speaking community, 250 from the five linguistic/cultural communities, and 50 from the LGBTQI2S+ group.DiscussionTo provide caregivers with optimal support, we must acknowledge the caregivers and care recipients from diverse communities. Currently, at least two focus groups have been conducted with caregivers from each of the seven targeted groups and workshops have begun for all communities. Recruitment has been a challenge for all groups, but our team continues to conduct outreach with caregivers and will use our learning to inform the delivery of educational caregiver workshops.
Highlights
Canada’s aging population is increasing, along with the number of caregivers providing support to seniors
One report states that 10% of caregivers of seniors in Canada provide more than 30 h of support a week, 60% of whom are employed and 25% are caring for a child [1]
For the purposes of this study, we developed two streams of caregivers to support different communities
Summary
Canada’s aging population is increasing, along with the number of caregivers providing support to seniors. Creating awareness of available supports for caregivers is essential for their health and to provide the best support to the care recipients. Content will be adapted based on identified participant learning needs These workshops will be offered to the English-speaking community, diverse newcomer ethnic groups and the LGBTQI2S+ community. With Canada’s population aging, the number of caregivers supporting seniors is simultaneously increasing. Caregiving is often a lonely and isolating task resulting in distress, anger or depression. Left unaddressed, this can lead to caregivers feeling overwhelmed and unable to continue in their role [4]
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