Informal carers

Significant others are often crucial for suicidal persons or suicide attempters’ access to care, yet little is known about their efforts to seek help. This article presents the findings of a qualitative pilot study carried out in Switzerland on the help-seeking process of 18 significant others, their perception of the care received by their loved one, and the interactions and collaboration they experienced with professionals. Most significant others repeatedly sought out support for their loved one and themselves.

Objective: Accurate informal carer assessment of patient symptoms is likely to be valuable for decision making in managing the high symptom burden of COPD in the home setting. Few studies have investigated agreement between patients and carers in COPD. We aimed to assess agreement between patients and carers on symptoms, and factors associated with disagreement in a population-based sample of patients with advanced COPD.; Patients and methods: This was a prospective, cross-sectional analysis of data from 119 advanced COPD patients and their carers.

Social exclusion has a negative impact on quality of life. People living with dementia or mental health disorders as well as informal carers have been separately described as socially excluded. The objective of this systematic narrative review was to examine the extent to which social exclusion experienced by adult informal carers of people living with dementia or severe mental health disorders has been identified and described in research literature. It synthesised qualitative and quantitative evidence and included the perspectives of carers themselves and of professionals.

AIM: To study the effectiveness of Reitman Centre “Coaching, Advocacy, Respite, Education, Relationship, and Simulation” (CARERS) program, which uses problem-solving techniques and simulation to train informal dementia carers.

This paper considers cash for care as reflected in direct payments and the more recent development of individual budgets in England. While the momentum to roll out individual budgets gathers pace in England, Wales has embarked on a more cautious approach in wishing to evaluate the impact of individual budgets on social services. The paper identifies some of the far reaching implications of cash for care in general and individual budgets in particular, for service users, carers ‐ both paid and informal ‐ and for the social work profession.

Background.  Stroke is the third most common cause of death in industrialized countries and a major cause of adult disability. However, the burden of caring for stroke survivors usually rests with family members who have neither chosen nor volunteered for the role of ‘carer’.

Aims.  This paper reports on a study which aimed to describe the experience of caring for a stroke survivor at one year after stroke in Scotland.

Carers form a substantial proportion of the patients seen by primary care professionals, but their health needs are often overlooked. By recognizing and addressing the needs of the carer as well as the patient, primary care staff (including practice, community and district nurses) can protect the physical and mental health of both. Staff can start by developing simple systems for identifying and recording both patients who are carers, and patients who have carers. Primary health professionals may be able to identify specific opportunities for checking on carers’ health, e.g.

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.

Carers of stroke survivors face significant burdens, and increased carer strain has negative implications for both the stroke survivor and the carer. In a prospective cohort of White British and British Indian stroke survivors and their carers, we report the incidence of carer strain in each ethnic group, describe patient and carer characteristics, and identify predictors of increased carer strain. Multidimensional outcome measures were used to assess the physical and cognitive function in stroke survivors at one month and 3-6 months from stroke onset.