carers

This research considers the impact of having a religious faith on the cancer experience of patients and informal carers, focusing primarily on the association between faith and psychosocial needs. A questionnaire survey of 1000 patients in the north-west of England returned 402 completed questionnaires; around two-thirds of patients indicated they had an informal carer.

Aim.  The aim of this study is to describe the experience of caregivers of individuals who have had a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

Background.  Decreased lengths of hospital stay and an increased emphasis on chronic disease self-management increase the importance of carers in assisting in recovery and lifestyle modification.

Design.  Cross-sectional dual-moderated focus group design.

The overall goal of the study reported in this paper was to examine differences in the perceived occurrence of abuse and neglect as between older care recipients, their family carers, and foreign home-care workers in Israel. Overall, 148 matched family members and foreign home-care workers and 75 care recipients completed a survey of abuse and neglect. Significant discrepancies in their reports of neglect were found, with the foreign home-care workers more likely to identify neglect (66%) than the older adults (27.7%) or their family members (29.5%).

Outlines a research project undertaken in the Dartford and Gravesham area of north west Kent to explore the service-related needs of Asian older people with dementia and their carers. The study was conducted from February 2002 to January 2004, based at a local dementia care charity, and funded by the Mental Health Foundation. Qualitative approaches were used to collect data about existing services and the views and perceptions of key stakeholders including: 7 GPs, 32 health professionals and service managers, 7 carers and 230 members of the local Asian community.

Reports on research from the Social Policy Research Unit (SPRU) designed to measure and monitor health inequalities between carers and noncarers. The study used data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) covering the period from 1991 to 2000. Results found that emotional and mental health problems are more often associated with caregiving than physical health problems

Social Role Valorisation theory, advanced to enhance the lives of disadvantaged groups of people, has addressed community care and lay advocacy for patients and users but has ignored the roles of relatives and carers. [In this article, the term ‘patient’ is used to describe a person who is detained under the Mental Health Act, liable to be detained, or in hospital on an informal basis.

BACKGROUND: Mental health services are required to take account of the needs of carers, yet little is known about how services affect carers.

AIMS: This paper explores the relationship between the user's mental health problems, the services received and the impact of caring on carers.

METHODS: Sixty-four carers were interviewed, measuring their experiences of care-giving, carer stress and the service user's level of impairment. A robust, composite measure of user severity was derived.

With the increasing number of people living with HIV/AIDS and the escalating costs of health care, there is an increasing demand for informal caregiving in the community. Currently, much emphasis is placed on individuals who are living with HIV/AIDS (in terms of the provision of social, psychological and economic support), but very little attention has been paid to the well-being and quality of life of informal caregivers. Lack of support and care for caregivers may have a negative impact on the quality of care and effective services for individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

Considerable suffering is experienced by carers of patients with dementia. Most existing studies do not consider the coexistence of subjective and objective aspects that cause, interacting to each other, this suffering. The authors: (1) define the high-risk group of caregivers on the bases of the scores obtained on the four scales evaluating burden, distress, depression and anxiety (BDDA) taken into account simultaneously and (2) evaluate risk factors related to the high level of BDDA. 419 elderly outpatients with dementia and their caregivers were enrolled.