Young Sook Tae

Nursing Home Placement: The Process of Decision Making and Adaptation among Adult Children Caregivers of Demented Parents in Korea

PURPOSE The goal of this study was to explore and describe the process of nursing home placement decision making and adaptation among adult children caregivers of demented parents in Korea and to generate a substantive theory grounded in their experiences. METHODS The participants were 16 adult children caregivers who had placed their demented elders into nursing homes. Data were collected by in-depth unstructured interviews with individual participants. Data were analyzed by Strauss and Corbins Grounded Theory methodology. RESULTS Analysis revealed that the core category of the process of nursing home placement decision making and adaptation among adult children caregivers was accepting the inevitable and reorienting to changes. It consisted of four phases: realizing a dead end, seeking a way out, accepting the inevitable decision, and reorienting to changes. Participants were driven to the corner of making the inevitable decision by the overwhelming care situation and confronted by various challenges in dealing with the decision. But they managed to accept the inevitableness of the decision and further learned to reorient themselves to the changed care situation utilizing various action/interaction strategies. CONCLUSION The findings of the study provide the basic information for developing proactive strategies to support family caregivers better in the difficult period of nursing home placement.

Factors Influencing Burden among Family Caregivers of Elderly Cancer Patients

Purpose: This study was to identify factors influencing burden among family caregivers of elderly cancer patients. Methods: The participants were 217 family caregivers who visited inpatient & outpatient clinics for elderly cancer patients at two general hospitals. Data were collected utilizing the Perceived Health Status Scale, Herth Hope Index Scale, Medical Outcome Study-Social Support Scale, and Caregiver Reaction Assessment Scale. Results: The level of burden in the participants was moderate to high. There were significant correlations among perceived health status, hope, social support and burden. In multiple regression analyses, the most powerful predictor of burden in family caregivers was hope (36.0%). Overall, other caregivers, perceived economic status, caring time, gender, patients’ confusion, tangible support, and perceived health status explained 61.0% of the variance of burden among the participants. Conclusion: The study highlights the importance of hope on burden in family caregivers. Thereby, integrative interventions are needed to enhance hope and social support and to promote caregivers’ health status for alleviating-burden among family caregivers.