Caregivers Of Older Relatives Research Articles

The impact of caregiving on the emotional well-being and health of family caregivers.

Family caregivers, who take care of older relatives, bear a heavy burden that can detrimentally affect their physical health and emotional well-being. This study aims to explore the subjective perceptions of family caregiving's impact on physical health and emotional well-being, the experience of feeling overburdened by caregiving responsibilities, and the subjective perceptions of health among caregivers of older relatives. Data from three waves of online questionnaire surveys conducted in 2018, 2020, and 2022 were analyzed. The COPE Index items were used to measure subjective perceptions of the impact of caregiving on physical health and emotional well-being and perceptions of being overburdened by caregiving. We present descriptive statistics and chi-square test analyses. In all three waves, the majority of respondents frequently or always perceived a negative impact of caregiving on their emotional well-being and physical health, with more than half always or often experiencing caregiver overburdening. A significant correlation was observed between the perceived impact of caregiving on physical health and emotional well-being, over 70% of respondents provided similar responses to both questions. Furthermore, a significant relationship is between the prevalence of caregiver overburden and subjective perceptions of health, with those experiencing caregiver overload being more likely to report poor or very poor health. Over 60% of participants indicated frequent or constant overburden of care, with this subgroup exhibiting a higher likelihood of perceiving their health as poor or very poor. Our results demonstrate that the caregiving burden affects both physical and emotional well-being. A significant proportion of family caregivers experience detrimental effects on their physical health and emotional well-being due to caregiving responsibilities. These negative effects were reported simultaneously by the majority of respondents. Caregiving can have negative consequences on the health of family caregivers. Our research underscores the importance of preventive measures. Orv Hetil. 2023; 164(40): 1583-1591.

BEING WOMEN AND BEING DEMENTIA CAREGIVERS: SELF-CONCEPTS IN THE MAKING OF VIETNAMESE FEMALE CAREGIVERS

In Vietnam, the majority of dementia caregivers are women. They play multiple social roles, and confront role conflicts and caregiving burdens with insufficient social supports. Dementia caregiving alters their self-concepts, or who they think they are. This paper aims to explore self-concepts of Vietnamese female caregivers of older relatives with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). In total, 21 face-to-face, semi-structured interviews, including six follow-up interviews, with 13 Vietnamese female caregivers of older patients with AD were conducted. These 13 caregivers were from 44 to 71 years old, mostly spouses of the patients with AD (n = 8), and retired (n = 9). Thematic coding procedure and the program MaxQDA12 were used for data analysis. Results show that the self-concepts of female caregivers in dementia care were complex, contextualized, and manifested in different aspects. First, self-concepts of these female caregivers were the outcome of the interactions between the guided-self and the performed-self. Their guided-self was the self that their social norms and cultural traditions told them about who they should be, while their performed-self was the self they demonstrated to the outside world. The mismatch between these two types of self caused distress among caregivers. Second, caregivers’ self-concept was the combination of the three key types of the self: the moral-self (a filial daughter or a responsible wife); the feminine-self (a patient and graceful women); and the worthy-self (a devoted and helpful caregiver). Understanding Vietnamese women’s self-concepts associated with their sociocultural context will better inform the development of support programs for them.

Quality of life, burden, family emotional support: a model for older adults who are caregivers.

To investigate associations between quality of life, sex, age, burden, and nature of emotional support available in the family in older adults who are caregivers of older relatives. Cross-sectional and correlational study on 148 caregivers gathered in public and private healthcare services, who were subjected to psychological measures of quality of life, burden, exchange of emotional support, sex, and age. Data were analyzed using Chi-square, Fisher's exact test and path analyses (p < 0.05). A total of 77% women, average age of 69.7 years. There were significant associations between exchange of support and burden due to the provided assistance, being a woman and satisfaction with the received support, satisfaction with the received support and burden, burden and quality of life, and satisfaction with the received support and feeling of burden due to the provided support. Satisfaction with the received emotional support moderate the association between sex and burden, and such moderate the association between satisfaction with emotional support and perceived quality of life.

Use of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale in Spanish caregivers.

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) is widely used in the assessment of anxiety and depression, but there are scarce data about its psychometric properties in caregivers of older relatives. The goal of this study was to analyse the factor structure of the HADS to verify its suitability to assess emotional symptomatology in family caregivers of old people, its internal consistency and confirming its relation with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and an index of disease and physical complaints. One hundred and seventy-five family caregivers (25 men and 150 women) aged 32-86, who were taking care of at least one older person in a situation of dependence, were recruited for this study. A descriptive, comparative, correlational design was employed. The scientific adequacy of the questionnaire and its structure were analysed using confirmatory factor analysis. The scores obtained in the GHQ and in an index of disease and physical complaints were used as external criteria to assess the adequacy of the HADS for caregivers. Higher levels of anxiety and depression than in the normal population were obtained. The reliability/internal validity of the questionnaire was adequate. A bifactor model, with one subscale for anxiety and one for depression, provides the best fit to the data. The subscales were related to GHQ-12 and index of diseases/physical complaints. The HADS was shown to be useful to assess the presence of anxiety and depression in family caregivers, and the original two-dimensional model is the most adequate.

Children as caregivers of older relatives living with HIV and AIDS in Nyang'oma division of western Kenya

There is growing debate about the situations of children who care for a relative with HIV-related illness, especially in developing countries with high HIV prevalence. In particular, there is inadequate information on the long-term consequences of children taking on this caregiving role. The article reanalyses data collected between January and November 2006 in a rural setting in western Kenya where 19 children caring for a total of 15 people living with HIV or AIDS (PLHIV) participated. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, participant observation, focus group discussions and narratives. The findings show that children regularly become involved in caregiving due to lack of a responsible adult to perform the role, which may be as a result of HIV stigma and rejection of the care recipient by extended family members and neighbours or because of cultural barriers. Fulfilling the responsibilities of caregiving had profound repercussions for the children's lives, including psychological distress, physical burden, dropping out of school, participation in wage labour, and forced early marriage. Financial needs pushed some girls into transactional sexual relations, predisposing them to the risks of unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections. Since the children providing care for PLHIV are themselves vulnerable, we recommend that they should be targeted with support.

Family caregivers of older relatives: Ways of coping and change in distress

The aim of this secondary analysis was to examine the relationships between the ways in which caregivers coped with caregiving stressors and their experience of distress over time. Three coping subscales were derived from the Carers' Assessment of Management Index (CAMI) coping scale: “maintaining balance”, “focusing on caregiving” and “avoidance”. A proportional (relative) scoring technique was applied. The analysis was based on the responses of 115 pairs of caregivers and care recipients. Care recipients were aged 66–92 years, with no symptoms of dementia, and the majority had mild to moderate hearing impairment. Data were collected at baseline and 6 months later. Caregivers who increased the proportion of strategies endorsed in the “maintaining balance” subscale experienced a decrease in distress, irrespective of change in the proportion of strategies endorsed in the “avoidance” subscale. “Focusing on caregiving” was not significantly related to distress. The results highlight the potential benefits to these caregivers of maintaining a balance in their lives by taking breaks from caregiving.

Caring for older people: a gendered practice

This article discusses how ethnomethodology and conversation analysis can contribute to the feminist study of caregiving. Interviews with caregivers of older relatives with disabilities were analyzed using a detailed conversation and membership categorization analysis within an ethnomethodological framework. The interviews were treated analytically as interactional encounters, useful to document instances of identity production and moral versions of oneself as a caregiver. The study describes some instances of the moral and relational universe in which caring practices are embedded, exploring the discursive construction of caring. Caring duties were shown to be bound to kin relationships, but significant gendering was evident in the attribution of caring responsibilities.