Male Caregivers Report Problems in Caring at Home After Spouses Survive Stroke.

Home Healthc Now

Linda L. Pierce, PhD, MSN, RN, CRRN, FAHA, FAAN, is a Professor, College of Nursing, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio. Victoria Steiner, PhD, is an Associate Professor, College of Health and Human Services, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio. Foluso Alamina, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, is a Nurse Practitioner, Bay Park Promedica Family Practice, Oregon, Ohio. Doreen Onyekelu, MSN, RN, CNP, is an Alumnus, College of Nursing, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio. Samantha Stevenson, MSN, RN, APRN, AGNP-C, is a Doctoral Student, College of Nursing, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio.

Published: April 2019

STROKE is sudden and often traumatic with results that affect both the patient and family members who provide care. Approximately 40% of individuals caring for family members/friends are male. Transitioning from the noncaregiver role to caregiver can be unsettling. Guided by Friedemann's framework of systemic organization, this secondary data analysis examined problems reported by men caring for spouses in the first year after stroke. Using a mixed methods design, 73 caregivers (CGs) participated in bimonthly telephone interviews for 1 year. For this analysis, only the males caring for spouses (n = 12 married and n = 1 unmarried partner) were examined. These data were analyzed using Colaizzi's rigorous method of content analysis. Five problem themes emerged: 1) adjusting to multitasking in everyday living (Friedemann's system maintenance and individuation), 2) recognizing physical and mental disabilities (coherence), 3) dealing with outside forces and limited resources (individuation), 4) struggling to return to normal (system maintenance), and 5) feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted (system maintenance). These problem themes demonstrated incongruence as the men sought to maintain their prior lives.Theory-based themes of male stroke CGs' problems were uncovered that can be used to target interventions to help them achieve balance between incongruence and congruence in their lives.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/NHH.0000000000000705DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

caring spouses
12
system maintenance
12
problem themes
8
male caregivers
4
caregivers report
4
report problems
4
caring
4
problems caring
4
spouses survive
4
stroke
4

Similar Publications

Context: Timely and transparent serious illness conversations (SIC) between family caregivers and patients facilitate high-quality end-of-life care and patients' and family caregivers' mental wellbeing, but frequently do not occur, happen too late, or are incomplete. While social relations and roles shape communication, few studies explore their influence on patient-caregiver SICs.

Objectives: Investigate how the parent-child relation and roles shape SICs between cancer patients and their adult-child caregivers (ACC), the largest caregiver population.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In today's healthcare systems, older family caregivers who care for their spouses at home are indispensable providers of healthcare. However, many of these caregivers are at risk of becoming ill themselves. To prevent this and to guide the development of targeted healthcare services, home-care personnel need knowledge on how to promote the health of older family caregivers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Web-based interventions targeted at family caregivers has become a quickly expanding research field, none the least since a growing number of patients with incurable illness are being cared for at home. Spouses, who are also family caregivers, constitute an especially vulnerable group in need of support when they are cohabitating with the ill patient and research shows that communication regarding the illness is important, yet challenging. This study therefore explored effects of a family caregiver-targeted web-based psycho-educational intervention on communication about incurable illness and remaining life between spouses and patients receiving specialized home care.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Resilience in Chinese Spouses of Patients with Advanced Cancer: A Longitudinal Exploration.

J Multidiscip Healthc

November 2024

School of Nursing, Jiangsu Medical College, Yancheng, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China.

Background: In China, spouses of patients with advanced cancer have reported experiencing psychological distress. However, little attention has been paid to the positive psychological health trajectories of these caregivers, particularly regarding their resilience and the factors influencing its development over time.

Purpose: To examine the trajectories of resilience in Chinese spousal caregivers over a nine-month post-treatment period and to identify the basic characteristics associated with these trajectory patterns.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Importance: Young adults aged 18 to 39 years represent the minority of breast cancer diagnoses but are particularly vulnerable to financial hardship. Factors contributing to sustained financial hardship are unknown.

Objectives: To identify financial hardship patterns over time and characterize factors associated with discrete trajectories; it was hypothesized that treatment-related arm morbidity, a key source of expense, would be associated with long-term financial difficulty.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!