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Care for Carers: an Investigation on Family Caregivers' Needs, Tasks, and Experiences.

ABSTRACT: Family caregivers have an essential active role in cancer patients assistance at home. They play a key role in the management of patients and provide some caregiving activities once provided only by professional caregivers. Often they are not adequately trained or prepared, however a systematic assessment of their needs is rarely practiced. For these reasons, this preliminary investigation was designed to better identify the needs and changes in the lifestyles of family caregivers of home cancer palliative care. Participants have completed a battery of self-report questionnaires, including the Caregiving Tasks Consequences and Needs Questionnaire (CaTCoN), that measures caregivers' experiences (the extent of cancer caregiving tasks and consequences) and the caregivers' needs, mainly concerning the interaction with the health care professionals. The results confirmed that cancer caregiving is burdensome. Large proportions of caregivers experienced substantial caregiving workload as well as a range of negative consequences, e.g. lack of time for social relations. Furthermore, considerable proportions of caregivers experienced problems or had unmet needs regarding the interaction with health care professionals. Prominent problematic aspects included the provision of enough information to the caregivers and attention to the caregivers' well-being and feelings. The assessment of caregivers' needs is a critical step for determining appropriate support services, providing high-quality care, achieving caregiver satisfaction, and decreasing caregiver burden. Findings of this investigation will certainly contribute to develop and publish Guidelines and to provide programmes and on-going education where caregivers feel supported in their role.

SUBMITTER: Zavagli V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6581485 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan-Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Care for Carers: an Investigation on Family Caregivers' Needs, Tasks, and Experiences.

Zavagli V V Raccichini M M Ercolani G G Franchini L L Varani S S Pannuti R R

Translational medicine @ UniSa 20190106

Family caregivers have an essential active role in cancer patients assistance at home. They play a key role in the management of patients and provide some caregiving activities once provided only by professional caregivers. Often they are not adequately trained or prepared, however a systematic assessment of their needs is rarely practiced. For these reasons, this preliminary investigation was designed to better identify the needs and changes in the lifestyles of family caregivers of home cancer ...[more]

PMID: 31360668

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Project description:BackgroundChronic conditions can lead to physical, cognitive and social decline; thus, increasing an individual's dependence on family who assist with activities of daily living. Interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP), involving two or more health professionals working with the patient and their family, is one model of care for the high-quality management of individuals with chronic conditions in primary care. Nevertheless, family carers have reported a disconnect between themselves and healthcare providers in previous research. This study aimed to explore the experiences and perspectives of family carers for individuals with chronic conditions, regarding their involvement in IPCP.MethodsAspects of constructivist grounded theory methodology were used. Family carers of individuals with chronic conditions were invited to participate in a one-on-one, semistructured interview about their experiences with IPCP in the care of their loved one. Interview transcripts were analysed using Charmaz's four-step iterative process: (1) line-by-line coding, (2) focused coding, (3) categorisation of codes and (4) potential theme and subtheme development with memo writing to support each phase of analysis. The research team collaborated on reflexivity exercises, the conceptualisation of categories and the development of themes.ResultsConstructivist data analysis of interviews (average 40 min) with 10 family carers resulted in two themes. (1) Stepping in for my loved one represents the notion that carers take on external roles on behalf of their loved ones (subthemes: working with interprofessional teams, supporting independence and learning as I go). (2) Taking on the carer role, represents the internal factors that influence the external roles described in theme 1 (subthemes: feeling obligated to be involved and changing relationship dynamics).ConclusionThis study outlines the external actions and internal influences on family carer involvement in an interprofessional team. The required knowledge and support to care for their loved ones is currently learned in an ad hoc manner, and carers' resources should be better promoted by health professionals. Additionally, the relationship dynamics between a carer and their loved one change as the carer becomes more involved in IPCP and influences how and the extent health professionals involve family carers.Patient or public contributionCarers were the study population involved in this qualitative study. Patient advocates who have chronic conditions, and are informal family carers, were involved in the creation and design of this study, including a review of the research question, participant information sheet and the interview guide.

Project description:Understanding caregivers' experiences of care can identify barriers to timely and good quality care, and support the improvement of services. We aimed to explore caregivers' experiences and perceptions of pathways to care, from first access through various levels of health service, for seriously ill and injured children in Cape Town, South Africa, in order to identify areas for improvement.Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted with primary caregivers of children who were admitted to paediatric intensive care or died in the health system prior to intensive care admission. Interviews explored caregivers' experiences from when their child first became ill, through each level of health care to paediatric intensive care or death. A maximum variation sample of transcripts was purposively sampled from a larger cohort study based on demographic characteristics, child diagnosis, and outcome at 30 days; and analysed using the method of constant comparison.Of the 282 caregivers who were interviewed in the larger cohort study, 45 interviews were included in this qualitative analysis. Some caregivers employed 'tactics' to gain quicker access to care, including bypassing lower levels of care, and negotiating or demanding to see a healthcare professional ahead of other patients. It was sometimes unclear how to access emergency care within facilities; and non-medical personnel informally judged illness severity and helped or hindered quicker access. Caregivers commonly misconceived ambulances to be slow to arrive, and were concerned when ambulance transfers were seemingly not prioritised by illness severity. Communication was often good, but some caregivers experienced language difficulties and/or criticism.Interventions to improve child health care could be based on: reorganising the reception of seriously ill children and making the emergency route within healthcare facilities clear; promoting caregivers' use of ambulances and prioritising transfers according to illness severity; addressing language barriers, and emphasising the importance of effective communication to healthcare providers.

Dataset Information

Care for Carers: an Investigation on Family Caregivers' Needs, Tasks, and Experiences.

Publications

Care for Carers: an Investigation on Family Caregivers' Needs, Tasks, and Experiences.

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