Family relations

Background This study examines the effects and associated factors of respite care, which was legislated as a community service for adults with an intellectual disability (ID) in Taiwan in 1997.

Method A total of 116 family carers who live with an adult with ID and have utilised the respite care program were surveyed using standardised measures.

The Oxford Friends and Family Empowerment (OFAFE) service is a carer support service that originated in a collaboration between the Oxfordshire Complex Needs Service and the national mental health charity Rethink. OFAFE provides support and education for adults supporting an individual with a personality disorder. This paper describes the background and operation of the OFAFE service, along with the early stages of the development of a similar service for young carers, the Young Friends and Family Empowerment (YFAFE) service.

The article discusses the difficulties experienced by young carers and how to develop and strengthen their caregiver skills and experience. It says that young carers are children, adolescents, and younger members of the family below the age of 25 who has become the primary caregiver of the family and takes adult responsibilities in managing the family due to parental absence. It says that due to their young age, most young carers experience psychological and physical stress in their lives, social isolation from their peers, and educational delays.

This article is focused on children providing and financing long-term care for their elderly parent. The aim of this work is to highlight the interactions that may take place among siblings when deciding whether or not to become a caregiver. We look at families with two children using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe; our sample contains 314 dependent elderly and their 628 adult children. In order to identify the interactions between siblings, we have specified a two-person discrete game model.

Introduction: Many people with dementia are enabled to live at home by the support of a close family member, who takes on the role of a carer. Considerable research has investigated the impact of caring for a person who has dementia. In early research, there was a tendency to overlook the experiences of the person with dementia and, in particular, the relationship between the two persons. This has now been corrected by a growing body of research on the relationships between people with dementia and the family members who care for them.

The aim of this article is to analyse 20 Finnish working carers' perceptions of their sibling relations and the sharing of the responsibility for parental care. The main focus is on the interviewees' rationales for the participation or non-participation of their siblings in the parents' care. Almost all the interviewed carers stated that the division of care responsibilities is unequal and that they are the primary carers, but the majority did not convey any clear intention to try to persuade their siblings to increase their participation in parental care.

While there is a growing body of literature regarding young carers, there are a number of gaps in our knowledge about these young people. In this study we attempted to fill these gaps by asking: 1) Do young people who care for a parent feel greater or lesser attachment security and relationship efficacy than adolescents who do not care for a parent?, 2) Is there a difference between young people who care for a parent and those who care for another family member?

This study examined support, stress, and well-being between adults who provide care for an aging and disabled parent and those who care for an aging and disabled parent-in-law. The study utilized a sample of individuals caring for a parent (n = 77), individuals caring for an in-law (n = 26) and a comparison group of noncaregivers (n = 1,939) from the Midlife Development in the United States study. In-law caregivers provided more financial assistance but adult child caregivers provided more emotional support and unpaid work.

It is widely accepted that cancer is an intersubjective experience that impacts upon the psychological well-being of people with cancer and informal carers, as well as on couple relationships. This qualitative study examined the nature and consequences of cancer on the relationship between informal carers and the person with cancer, from the perspective of Australian cancer carers. Sixty-two carers (42 women and 20 men), across a range of cancer types, stages and relationship dyads took part in semi-structured interviews.

Objective: To examine the use of respite services among carers of non-institutionalised individuals aged 15 and over with either profound or severe disabilities. Methods: Based on data collected from the Australian Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers in 2003, the investigation evaluated the statistical significance of a number of carer and recipient characteristics on the likelihood of the use of respite services. Further analysis assisted in identifying the support most desired by the majority of carers (88.6%, n=243690) who have never used respite.