| Learning Objective #1: List the primary concerns of families caring for octogenarian CABG patients during the first month after hospital or rehab discharge | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Identify ethical issues involved in caring for elderly family members after CABG surgery |
Objective: to describe the lived experience of caring for very elderly (80 years or older) CABG patients during convalescence at home, and to learn of any ethical issues involved in informal family caregiving.
Design: A hermeneutic/phenomenological design was used to follow caregivers of CABG patients age 80 or older at home. The philosophy of Heidegger (1962) and the works of van Manen (1990) and Cohen, Steeves, and Kahn, (2000) guided this study.
Population, Sample, Setting, Years: the population for the study was limited to those people caring for octogenarian CABG patients at home after hospital or rehab discharge. A sample of 12 female family members, age 46-83, was interviewed either in the home of the caregiver or patient over a four week period.
Concept Studied: informal family caregiving for octogenarian CABG patients.
Methods: caregivers were interviewed at one week and four weeks after the patients were discharged from the hospital or rehab center. Interviews were audio-taped and transcribed into text. From written text, data analysis was accomplished by data reduction, reading and categorizing, re-reading and interpretation, and writing.
Findings: there were five themes involved in informal caregiving: change, personal response, work, family issues, and experiencing formal care. Ethical issues that were discovered in this sample’s experience included: self-determination (autonomy), beneficence, duty and justice.
Conclusion: family issues as well as gaps in follow up after discharge, led to caregiver frustration. Ethical issues were evident in both the family and the health care community. In the end, participants saw caregiving as their duty whether derived from obligation or from love.
Implications: Findings point to a need for future research in the areas of ethics in family caregiving, elderly caregivers, CABG in the very elderly, and discharge protocols and follow-up for this specific group.
Back to Home Care
Back to 14th International Nursing Research Congress
Sigma Theta Tau International
10-12 July 2003