Research Questions
What are some of the burden that the family caregivers are facing?
What is the substantial psychological morbidity burden?
How is patient behavior viewed as a burden to the family caregivers?
Over the years, the medical care need has increased, and for this reason, the task of patient treatment has been transferred to family caregivers, especially to the people suffering from chronical diseases. Many researchers have focused on bringing into light the issue of the family caregivers’ burdens, of which most of the studies focus on exploring the challenges that caregivers who are set to provide medical care to the spouses diagnosed with different types of diseases are encountering. Grunfeld et al. (2004) assert in the recent years, the role of the family caregivers have been widely recognized, particularly that of the people taking cares of the dying cancer patient.
Studies are yet to come with clear reasons why people taking care of sick people in their homes are burdened by the task. According to Grunfeld et al. (2004), the family caregivers who support the people, suffering from diseases such as cancer play a significant role, but the caregivers have to deal with several burdens that are affecting the task of showing care to the people with cancer. The study sample is from Canada, and it highlights that substantial psychological morbidity is a burden that the family caregivers face (Grunfeld et al. 2004). The study summarizes the key points by saying that substantial psychological morbidity burden; the caregivers experience anxiety and depression, which are brought when cancer patients at home reach the terminal stage of the illness.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Equally, Zarit, Todd, and Zarit (1986) reveal that the behavior of patients who get the treatment of specific diseases at home is a burden to the family caregivers. For example, in the case where the patients at home have repetitive behaviors, the family caregivers become irritated, hence feeling troubled by the behavior of the patient under the family care program. In the similar study, (Zarit, Todd, and Zarit 1986) it is concluded that the family caregivers feel burdened when the patients keep of repeating the same behaviors, which come hard for the caregivers to tolerate and as a result becoming less concern with the care programs.
References
Etters, L., Goodall, D., & Harrison, B. E. (2008). Caregiver burden among dementia patient caregivers: a review of the literature. Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners , 20 (8), 423-428.
Grunfeld, E., Coyle, D., Whelan, T., Clinch, J., Reyno, L., Earle, C. C., & Glossop, R. (2004). Family caregiver burden: results of a longitudinal study of breast cancer patients and their principal caregivers. Canadian Medical Association Journal , 170 (12), 1795-1801.
Papastavrou, E., Kalokerinou, A., Papacostas, S. S., Tsangari, H., & Sourtzi, P. (2007). Caring for a relative with dementia: family caregiver burden. Journal of advanced nursing , 58 (5), 446-457.
Zarit, S. H., Todd, P. A., & Zarit, J. M. (1986). Subjective burden of husbands and wives as caregivers: A longitudinal study. The Gerontologist , 26 (3), 260-266.
