English

Unlike professional caregivers such as physicians and nurses, informal caregivers, typically family members or friends, provide care to individuals with a variety of conditions including advanced age, dementia, and cancer. This experience is commonly perceived as a chronic stressor, and caregivers often experience negative psychological, behavioural, and physiological effects on their daily lives and health.

The expansion of the older population suggests that there will be significant numbers in need of care and support in their own home environment. Yet, little is known about the kind of situations professionals are faced with and how they intervene in the living environment of older people. Qualitative data were collected over a period of 1.5 years from a multi-disciplinary community-based geriatric team in the Netherlands, and participant observations carried out. Forty-two cases discussed within the team meetings were analysed.

While discourse about care and caring is well developed in the UK, the nature of knowledge generation about care and the research paradigms that underpin it have been subjected to limited critical reflection and analysis. An overarching synthesis of evidence – intended to promote debate and facilitate new understandings – identifies two largely separate bodies of carer-related research.

AIM: To develop an assessment tool for the collection of information on carers' needs and to pilot test same. BACKGROUND: No formal assessment of the needs of carers is undertaken by Public Health Nurses (PHNs) in the West of Ireland. METHOD: An assessment tool which took the form of a questionnaire was designed based on an earlier needs analysis, a literature review and qualitative data obtained with carers at two focus groups. Sixty carers were involved in the pilot study of the tool.

It is estimated that around 6 million adults in Britain are providing unpaid care to a sick, disabled or elderly person. The challenges of combining paid work and informal care affect the type of work that can be done, the hours of work, and the likelihood of gaining or remaining in employment. The main aims of this research were to examine what employment supports are needed for carers currently in work or those who are currently caring or have recently ended a spell of caring and want to return to paid employment.

This is the report of a collaborative study between the Manchester Metropolitan University and the Bibini Centre for Young People to investigate the experiences, needs and access to services of black ‘young carers’ and their families. It is important to highlight that this study was situated within the social and political context of inequality, at a time when interest in the root causes of inequality seems to have been lost; instead, the focus is on ‘managing diversity’ (as if the problem lies in ‘difference’) and grappling with the consequences, not the causes, of social exclusion.

Few of the studies focusing on family caregiving have dealt with families caring for a young adult member with a serious and persistent mental illness. This qualitative study expands our understanding of the caregiving processes in these families. The narrative responses of 76 family caregivers from National Alliance for the Mentally Ill chapters across the United States were analysed using content analysis. Five caregiving processes were identified including monitoring, managing the illness, maintaining the home, supporting/encouraging, and socialising.

As the location of long-term care of elderly people moves to homes and communities, and responsibility for care shifts to families, understanding the experience of people in this situation is necessary to ensure that support is appropriate, accessible and effective. The present paper explores informal caregivers’ and recipients’ relationships with formal support, drawing on thematic and narrative analysis of 30 in-depth interviews with self-identified family caregivers conducted over a year in a mid-size city in Ontario, Canada.

Following the publication of the Good Practice Guide and report “We CareToo”, by the National Black Carers and Carer Workers Network and Afiya Trust, an audit of its impact was planned. This coincided with the announcement a new National Carers Strategy and the exercise was broadened into this review of the needs and experiences of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities in Britain to complement the Government’s formal consultation.

It is possible that effective information-sharing strategies to improve the quality of care can be developed. Service users, carers and professionals should all be involved in generating such strategies. The ideal information-sharing strategy can be tailored to individuals' needs and requires professionals to make carefully weighted judgements. Professionals need training to help them to understand the roles of carers and to work with carers effectively. Training should be accredited in order to encourage attendance.