OBJECTIVE: to explore how informal caregiver assistance needs were similar and different across chronic illnesses populations.
DESIGN: A descriptive, survey with a convenience sample.
POPULATIONS, SAMPLE AND SETTING: Family caregivers (n=30) of elders with either Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease were recruited from geriatric clinics, private medical practices and home care and caregiver support groups in one south central state.
VARIABLES: Caregiver assistance needs were conceptualized as a 3-dimensional model involving: assistance with care skill-training (e.g., how to get more chronic illness information, how to provide direct care), assistance in finding and securing community resources (e.g., how to talk with the doctor, where to get home health services, economical resources for home safety modifications, sources of financial aid) and assistance in caregiver self-care (e.g., getting social support and respite help from others).
METHODS: Semi-structured interviews and completion of a self-scored 3-point measure that asked caregivers to score 16 different types of caregiver assistance on their relative importance to the caregiver (1=assistance in this area is not important; 2=assistance in this area is somewhat important; 3=assistance in this area is very important).
FINDINGS: PD caregivers were older (Mean age=72.3), female (n=12); spouses (n=12) who had provided PD care for a mean of 74 months (range: 2-180 months). Twelve of the 15 attended PD support group sessions. In contrast, AD caregivers were younger (Mean age=57.7), and 6 were non-spousal family members. AD caregivers had provided home care for an average of only 28 months (range: 6-72 months), and only two had ever attended a support group. Despite these differences, mean ratings of respondents in the two groups were similar on the following needs for assistance: information on the illness (AD Mean=2.7, PD Mean=2.6); learning more care skills (AD Mean=2.1, PD Mean=2.2); information on how to talk to health professionals (AD Mean=2.1, PD Mean=2.1); and, information on community resources (AD Mean=2.7, PD Mean=2.2). There was greatest divergence on the need for assistance with physical care (AD caregiver Mean=2.5, PD caregiver Mean=1.6), which may have been a reflection of more cognitive impairment and thus more ADL dependence problems in AD care recipients..
CONCLUSIONS: Although this study used a convenience sample of caregivers from two different chronic illnesses and made no effort to match caregivers on age, gender, kin relationship or length of caregiving experience caregivers had similar caregiving assistance needs.
IMPLICATIONS: This study is important in that it demonstrates that regardless of differences in characteristics believed to moderate caregiving difficulties (type of illness, age, kin relationship, caregiving experience) caregivers across chronic illnesses have similar needs for assistance.
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