Emotions

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate the spiritual challenges faced by Iranian family caregivers of patients with cancer. The findings showed, 2 main themes, including "spiritual crisis" and "spiritual coherence", and 6 classes, including "spiritual distress", "disappointment," "faith and trust in God," "praying," "inner peace," and "transcendence."

Background: Caring for a family member with advanced cancer at home is demanding as the ill family member is likely to have complex physical and emotional needs. There is a paucity of studies on the experience of home family caregivers of people with advanced cancer in the Asian region. Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the experiences of family caregivers caring for a person with advanced cancer at home in Singapore.

Background Clinicians, researchers and politicians are seeking to better assess caregiver's needs. Challenges exist in broadly implementing this so as to provide appropriate support. The aim of this review was to compile self-administered instruments for assessment of caregiver's needs that are deemed to be scientifically robust. Methods The Medline database was searched for publications reporting self-administered instruments assessing caregiver's needs with acceptable psychometric properties.

Croft appreciates that while caring is a rewarding experience, the responsibility of supporting others can take its toll: indeed, people who provide substantial care are at 50% greater risk of experiencing mental health problems themselves. The burden of caring can be objective and subjective. For carers to fulfil their roles and feel supported doing so, it is essential for nurses to be empathetic and compassionate, and provide information, as well as offering a carer's assessment.

Background and Objectives: Many adults with autism spectrum disorders require lifelong reliance on caregiver support. As these caregivers age and experience health challenges, social support can be critical. This study seeks to understand if caregiver health moderates the relationship between informal social support and caregiver burden.; Research Design and Methods: A total of 320 parents (age 50+ years) of adult children diagnosed with ASD were recruited from autism organizations and support groups and completed a web-based survey.

Background: Having support from an informal carer is important for heart failure patients. Carers have the potential to improve patient self-care. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that caregiving could affect the carer negatively and cause emotional reactions of burden and stress. Dyadic (patient and informal carer) heart failure self-care interventions seek to improve patient self-care such as adherence to medical treatment, exercise training, symptom monitoring and symptom management when needed.

The shift in care from long-term hospitalization of individuals with mental illness to the community places a greater onus of responsibility on informal caregivers. The purpose of the current study was to explore the lived experiences of long-term caregivers of individuals with unipolar depression. A qualitative phenomenological methodology was used and two sets of semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine informal caregivers. Data were transcribed following Giorgi's phenomenological method.

Objectives: Positive aspects of the caregiving experience may buffer caregivers from the many negative psychological and physical consequences of caregiving. Understanding what factors relate to the recognition of positive aspects of caregiving is important for the enhancement of caregiver well-being. Self-efficacy is a potentially modifiable psychological construct that has been associated with positive thinking, improved control of negative affect, and enhanced motivation.

There is increasing research exploring depression in carers of people with dementia. This study explored the relation of entrapment, shame and guilt to depression in a group of 70 carers of those with dementia. As in other studies the experience of entrapment in the role was highly related to depression. Moreover, experiences of shame relating to self-criticism, other people's expectations and the fear of their criticism were significantly related to depression, entrapment and guilt.

Background Even at the first episode of psychosis, high expressed emotion (EE) characterises over half of patient–carer relationships. This study compared a carer appraisal model of EE with the ability of illness factors to predict EE at the first episode.

Aims To investigate the utility of a carer appraisal model of EE in first-episode psychosis.

Method We compared high- and low-EE carers of people who had first-episode psychosis (n=46).