Hughes, Zoe

The Building Resources in Caregivers (BRiC) is a pilot feasibility trial that compared the effects of a 2‐week benefit finding writing expressive intervention to a control intervention, who wrote about the weather. Caregivers completed primary (benefit finding) and secondary (quality of life, depression and anxiety) outcome measures at pre (t1), immediately post‐test (t2) and 1 month later (t3). They also completed measures relating to trial feasibility, difficulty, and acceptance.

Project aims: 

Underpinned by an engaged research approach, CARERENGAGE has an overall aim to coproduce in-depth, practically-oriented knowledge and evidence-based research impacting family carers in Ireland. Specifically, this will involve Institute of Social Science in the 21st Century UCC (ISS21) and Care Alliance Ireland (CAI) facilitating and delivering three national workshops addressing three key research and policy areas identified by CAI, in consultation with its 85 CVO members.

This aim is supported by the following action-specific objectives:

Social media has a role in the lives of many family carers. We present a case study of Facebook (FB) use in Care Alliance Ireland, a small Irish not-for-profit carer support organization. In 2012, in its role as coordinator of National Carers Week, Care Alliance Ireland set up a Facebook page to increase reach and awareness of the week amongst family caregivers who used Facebook. Philanthropic donations in the early years of FB use enabled the large-scale and relatively efficient recruitment of followers through targeted social media ads.

In 2018, a survey found that 82% of the Irish population, across all age groups, had used the internet in some way in the three months preceding the survey (Central Statistics Office, 2018). Ninety-seven percent of those aged between 16 and 29, and nearly half of those aged between 60 and 74, had done so. It is clear, then, that  increasingly the internet is becoming a tool that must be understood and utilised as a viable way to supplement supports for family carers.

The word ‘carer’, meaning family carer, is now widely used, especially in Western cultures. However, it is open to interpretation, is employed differently depending on circumstance, sector and setting, is at times resisted as a label by carers themselves, and is evolving as a term and role. This contribution reviews the term ‘carer’ and how it is understood, with particular reference to Ireland.

Traditionally, the majority of the population of Ireland have lived in rural areas outside of large towns and cities. However, this has changed over time, and in 2016 just over 37% of the population lived in an ‘aggregate rural area’ – which is an area of less than 1,500 inhabitants. The percentage of family carers living in these same rural aggregate areas is higher, at almost 42%.