Family caregiver's experiences of providing care to patients with End-Stage Renal Disease in South-West Nigeria

Aims and objectives: To describe the experiences of family caregivers providing care for patients living with End‐Stage Renal Disease in Nigeria Background: Family caregiving is where an unpaid volunteer, usually a close family member, attends to the needs of a loved one with a chronic, disabling illness within the home. Much research has been conducted in the area of family caregiving in high‐income countries. However, the same cannot be said for many of the low‐resource, multicultural African countries. Design: Qualitative descriptive study. Method: This qualitative descriptive study used manifest content analysis to analyse data from semi‐structured, individual interviews, with 15 purposively selected family caregivers. Two tertiary institutions providing renal care in South‐Western Nigeria: the research setting for this study. Result: Five categories were identified, and these included disconnectedness with self and others, never‐ending burden, ‘a fool being tossed around’, obligation to care and promoting a closer relationship. Conclusion: Experiences associated with the caregiving of patients diagnosed with End‐Stage Renal Disease evoked a number of emotions from the family caregivers, and the study revealed that caregiving imposed some burdens that are specific to low‐resource countries on participants. Relevance to clinical practice: Nurses need to engage family caregivers on disease‐specific teachings that might promote understanding of the disease process and role expectation. Family caregivers may benefit from social support services.