Document Detail


Help-seeking by older husbands caring for wives with dementia.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  17608688     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
AIM: This paper reports a study to gain understanding of the help-seeking process of older husbands caring for wives with dementia. BACKGROUND: Men comprise 41% of spousal caregivers. However, few reports describe older husbands' caregiving experiences and none specifically explore help-seeking in men caring for wives with dementia. METHOD: A grounded theory design was used to discover a theory of help-seeking by older caregiver husbands. Audiotaped interviews were conducted during 2004 and 2005 with nine husband participants. The interviews were analysed by a research group to discover the core category and the relationships of related categories to develop a theory of help-seeking that was grounded in the data. Margaret Newman's theory of Health as Expanding Conscious provided a theoretical perspective for interpretation of the findings. FINDINGS: The core category, 'Doing the best I can', was preceded by the antecedent of 'changing patterns'. Husbands made choices to use action/interaction strategies of 'Relinquishing', 'Reaching out' and 'Shouldering' which were influenced by a variety of internal, relational, situational, and experiential facilitating or hindering intervening conditions. The consequence of help-seeking process was 'Continuing on', which had categories of: 'Keeping at home', 'Staying together', and 'Taking care of myself'. CONCLUSION: Help-seeking by older husband caregivers is complex and gender-specific. Interventions to assist these caregivers must also be gender-specific and complement already existing help-seeking patterns. Focusing on helping caregivers to discover their patterns of relating and help-seeking empowers them to find new ways of interacting and to discover possibilities for action.
Authors:
Janet Witucki Brown; Shu-li Chen; Carolyn Mitchell; Amy Province
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't     Date:  2007-07-02
Journal Detail:
Title:  Journal of advanced nursing     Volume:  59     ISSN:  0309-2402     ISO Abbreviation:  J Adv Nurs     Publication Date:  2007 Aug 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2007-07-19     Completed Date:  2007-12-12     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  7609811     Medline TA:  J Adv Nurs     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  352-60     Citation Subset:  IM; N    
Affiliation:
The University of Tennessee College of Nursing, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. jwitucki@utk.edu
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Adaptation, Psychological
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Caregivers / psychology*
Dementia / nursing*
Humans
Male
Professional-Family Relations*
Psychological Theory
Social Support*
Spouses / psychology*
United States

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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