Predictors of use of secondary carers used by the elderly following hospital discharge

Travesty of Life Elders Abuse an Inquiry of Physical and Psychological Abuse

Elder abuse is evil in human society. The present paper unveils this social issue from two major factors psychological and physical abuse. The study sensitizes the subject matter of study by examining the effects of demographic variables like gender and age on elders. For achieving the purpose of the study the research is a design by exploring and validating the factors of measuring elder abuse through the mix method approach, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). To test the established hypotheses of the effects of the demographic variable on elders the two-way ANOVA was applied. The present study verdicts the development of a sound measurement scale with two influence factors. The separate and composite effect of aging and gender type on elder abuse was evidenced. These findings are crucial especially when the prevalence of elder abuse is higher during COVID-19. The limited novel understudied variable opens an avenue for further research in behavioral and demographic variables like marital status. The present study has practical insinuation for caring the elders in any human society like physical and psychological treatment of elders to avoid abusive situations. In addition, the study attempts to validate the novel issues like psychological and physical abuse of elders in the dimensions of demographic variables. Some rare studies in the Indian continent established the motivation of conducting the research on this dimension.

Factors Associated with Health Check-up and Cancer Screening Participation among Family Caregivers of Patients with Dementia: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND

Providing care for patients with dementia can negatively influence the physical health and health behaviours of family caregivers. A better understanding of the factors associated with health check-up and cancer screening participation is vital for developing effective interventions. Thus, this study aimed to identify factors associated with health check-up and cancer screening participation among family caregivers of patients with dementia.

METHODS

This was a cross-sectional study that analysed the data of 2,414 family caregivers of patients with dementia collected by the Korea Community Health Survey in 2017. A binomial logistic regression analysis was performed to identify demographic, socioeconomic, and health status factors associated with health check-up and cancer screening participation among family caregivers of patients with dementia.

RESULTS

Health check-up and cancer screening rates among family caregivers of patients with dementia were 68.7% and 61.4%, respectively, which were significantly lower than the rates for individuals who were not caregivers of patients with dementia. Those with lower education levels had lower odds ratios (OR) for both health check-up (OR: 0.60) and cancer screening (OR: 0.59) participation. In addition, symptoms of depression were associated with lower participation (health check-up OR: 0.67; cancer screening OR: 0.65).

CONCLUSIONS

More targeted disease prevention and management strategies must be developed for family caregivers of patients with dementia, particularly those with depressive symptoms and lower education levels.

Care Demands and Well-Being of Primary and Secondary Non-Spousal Caregivers of Aging Adults

OBJECTIVES

Compare care demands, strain, and health across 912 primary and secondary caregivers of parents, other family, and friends aged 50 and older.

METHODS

Data came from the nationally representative Caregiving in the U.S. 2015 data set. Two by three factorial ANOVAs and binary logistic regression examined the effects of primary caregiver status and relationship type on care demands and well-being.

RESULTS

Primary caregivers provided more hours of care for a longer duration and were more likely to report financial stress, and that caregiving made their health worse. Primary caregivers did not differ from secondary caregivers in emotional stress, and physical strain was comparable in primary and secondary caregivers of parents and other family. Caregivers of parents generally reported the highest levels of demands and stress/strain. Controlling for amount of care provided attenuated some of these differences.

CONCLUSIONS

Secondary caregivers provide less care but report emotional stress comparable to primary caregivers. Primary caregivers of friends provide high levels of assistance that may increase their physical strain.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

Caregiver research and intervention should include greater attention to needs of secondary caregivers, and caregivers of friends, and ways to strengthen their potentially critical roles.

The Association of Health Literacy and Electronic Health Literacy With Self-Efficacy, Coping, and Caregiving Perceptions Among Carers of People With Dementia: Research Protocol for a Descriptive Correlational Study

Background

In the last decade, electronic health (eHealth) literacy has attracted the attention of the scientific community, as it is associated with the self-management of patients with chronic diseases and the quality and cost of care. It is estimated that 80% of people with chronic diseases are cared for at home by a family member, friend, or relative. Informal carers are susceptible to physical and mental health problems, as well as social and financial hardships. Nevertheless, there seems to be a research gap in terms of carers’ needs, skills, and available resources in the age of new technologies, with the vital role of eHealth literacy of the carers remaining unexplored.

Objective

The aim of this study was to investigate the level of eHealth literacy and health literacy of primary and secondary carers of people with dementia, to explore the association between health and eHealth literacy, as well as their association with the caregiving variables: self-efficacy, coping, and caring perceptions.

Methods

A sample of 200 primary carers (the carer who supports the people with dementia in everyday living) and 200 secondary carers (family member, friend, or other person in the social network assisting the primary carer in their role) will be recruited from dementia day care centers and Alzheimer’s associations in Greece and Cyprus. The study will be a cross-sectional correlational descriptive study. Tools to be used include the eHealth Literacy Scale adapted for carers to measure eHealth literacy, European Health Literacy Survey Questionnaire 16 (HLS-EU-Q16), Single Item Literacy Screener, Revised Scale for Caregiving Self-Efficacy, Carers of Older People in Europe (COPE) index for caregiving perceptions, and COPE brief to measure selected coping strategies. Descriptive statistics will be reported, and correlations between different variables will be explored with parametric and nonparametric measures.

Results

As a preliminary study, the HLS-EU-Q16 has been validated in 107 older people. The internal consistency of the scale as estimated using Cronbach alpha coefficient was .77, somewhat lower than other validation studies. Recruitment of pilot study participants started in May 2017.

Conclusions

Carers’ eHealth literacy is a new field. Whereas previous studies have focused on the role and impact of low eHealth literacy and health literacy among older adults, the eHealth literacy of carers, and in fact carers of people with dementia, has not been explored. We hypothesize an association between eHealth literacy and health literacy level with carers’ perceptions about caregiving role, self-efficacy, and coping strategies. A possible moderator in these associations is the secondary carers’ eHealth and health literacy level, which will also be explored. By confirming the above hypotheses, tailored eHealth literacy interventions for carers of people with dementia and their families will be developed as a direct outcome of this research.

Likelihood of African American Primary Caregivers and Care Recipients Receiving Assistance From Secondary Caregivers: A Rural-Urban Comparison

We examine rural-urban differences in reliance on secondary caregivers for African American female primary caregivers (250 rural, 242 urban) and their care recipients. Logistic regression was used to identify caregiver and care recipient characteristics significantly associated with the likelihood of having a secondary caregiver within rural and urban samples. Post hoc Wald chi-square tests were used to identify significant between-sample differences in regression coefficients. Secondary caregivers were more common in urban than rural contexts. Having a secondary caregiver was more strongly related to primary caregivers' poorer physical health and nonresidence with care recipients in rural than urban contexts. Findings suggest that policy initiatives, such as the National Family Caregivers Support Act and the cash and counseling model, may benefit rural and urban residents, particularly rural residents as the majority of them lacked secondary caregiver assistance.

Palliative care of patients with a primary malignant brain tumour: case review of service use and support provided

Individuals with a primary malignant brain tumour require intensive palliative care services because of the symptoms and cognitive problems they experience. Many of these patients stay with their families at home, being supported by palliative care home teams rather than being admitted for hospice care. The provision of respite care and community services to support these families goes largely unreported. This study arises out of a need to review support services for patients and carers within one cancer and palliative care service. This retrospective case analysis identifies that there are a range of services used in the community to support patients with primary malignant brain tumours but that only a small proportion receive inpatient hospice care. District nursing services were extensively used but also a high number (74%) of patients were admitted to local hospitals for symptom management. This paper attempts to explore the services utilized but also questions the apparently limited provision of hospice care for supporting individuals in the palliative care stages of such an illness. This paper considers the illness trajectory, the complex symptoms experienced by patients and respite services utilized. Issues of those engaged in informal care giving and in the provision of support for those with a primary malignant glioma are also considered.

Caregiver burden and depressive symptoms: analysis of common outcomes in caregivers of elderly patients

Despite widespread use of caregiver burden and depressive symptoms in caregiving research, the relationship between these two concepts and the way in which burden and depressive symptoms are affected are not clear.

METHODS

The authors used structural equation modeling with an inception cohort of 488 family caregivers to examine the relationship between care recipients' mental and functional status and recency of care demands and caregivers' burden and depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

Care recipients' mental and functional status and recency of care demands predicted caregiver burden; burden, in turn, was nearly significant in predicting depressive symptoms. Care recipients' mental status and recency of care demands had a near significant indirect effect on caregiver depressive symptoms. There were no significant direct paths between care recipients' mental status, functional status, recency of care demands, and caregivers' depressive symptoms.

DISCUSSION

Health care practitioners should assist caregivers with new care demands stemming from care recipients' mental and functional status to decrease burdens and should monitor caregivers with higher levels of burden for the development of depressive symptoms.

Sleep and depression in cancer caregivers

A cross-sectional, correlational design was used to describe and explore the relation between caregiver sleep and depression. For the study, 51 caregivers were recruited from two sites in southern California. Caregivers were primarily white (84%), female (80%), spouses (61%), or adult children (29%), who had provided care for a mean of 16 hours per day for an average of 2 years. The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D)and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were used to measure caregiver depression and sleep, respectively. Most of the caregivers (95%) expressed severe sleep problems, and more than half of them were experiencing depressive symptoms at a level that would suggest risk for clinical depression. Correlations were strongest between caregiver depression and the sleep subscales of overall quality (r = 0.70; p < 0.001), habitual sleep efficiency (r = 0.54; p < 0.001), and daytime dysfunction (r = 0.59; p < 0.001). The final regression model, which included these subscales, predicted 63.6% of the variance in depression scores (F = 27.32; p < 0.001). These findings, which are consistent with results from other studies, suggest that caregivers of persons with terminal illness are at risk for clinical depression. It is critical for nurses to be cognizant of the relation between sleep problems and depression, and to explore interventions that would allow the caregivers to obtain needed sleep without diminishing their ability to function in their role as caregiver.