carers

This study examines what support services are offered to informal caregivers and whether the support is aimed directly or indirectly at the carers. Data were collected by means of two mail questionnaires in a Swedish county. The first questionnaire was aimed at each municipality in the region. The second questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 284 voluntary organizations in the region. Only the municipalities proved to have relief services, day care centres and two forms of payment for carers.

Objective: To develop an intervention, using the first three phases of the Medical Research Council (MRC) framework for complex interventions, to facilitate coping skills in new carers of stroke patients.

Background: This study is the first to explore how rumination or recurrent dwelling may contribute to psychological distress in palliative care.

Continuity of care is considered by patients and clinicians as an essential feature of good quality care in long-term disorders, yet there is general agreement that it is a complex concept and the lack of clarity in its conceptualisation and operationalisation has been linked to a deficit of user involvement. In this paper we utilise the concept of the ‘patient career’ to frame patient accounts of their experiences of the mental health care system.

Services for people with learning difficulties are facing new challenges. These lie not only in the care of severely learning disabled clients, but also in the care of older people with a learning difficulty who develop dementia and support for their families, formal carers and friends.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of an empirically based theoretical model of abuse of women with physical disabilities. The Abuse Pathways model was developed from a critical disability life history research study conducted with 37 women who had simultaneously experienced abuse and physical disability. The model begins to address the complexity of abuse of women with physical disabilities by identifying the interactive components of the phenomenon.

The grim prognosis that accompanies a diagnosis of a malignant glioma affects quality of life (QOL) as patients attempt to adapt to overwhelming losses. Caregivers also experience negative changes in QOL as responsibilities grow. This pilot study measured the QOL of patients with malignant gliomas prior to tumor progression and the QOL of their caregivers. It examined negative and positive factors that impacted the QOL while highlighting positive factors often overlooked in brain tumor QOL research. Standardized QOL questionnaires and focus groups were utilized.

Background: The aim of this study was to develop a tool to measure the family's difficulties in caring for cancer patients at the end of life at home: Family's Difficulty Scale in end-of-life home care (FDS).

Methods: The draft of the FDS was derived from a pilot interview survey and literature reviews. The questionnaires were sent to 395 bereaved family caregivers whose family members were patients with terminal cancer receiving home service.

This article presents a case study contrasting the disease orientation and strengths perspective, and describing how strengths perspectives can be used to utilize the assets and strengths that each person with dementia retains in order to improve both the quality of care and the quality of life for the person with demetia and his or her family carers.