1.Factors Conducive to Continuation of Home Nursing Care of Advanced Dementia Patients--A Survey of Family Caregivers by Interview--
Takako TSUKAHARA ; Shinzi MIYAHARA ; Yukie YAMASITA
Journal of the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine 2010;59(4):461-469
This study was conducted to clarify the factors that contribute to the continuation of home nursing care. For this purpose, we interviewed family caregivers who had looked after dementia patients at home for more than one year. The patients had been judged to be in need of stage-2 nursing care or above. The interviewees were five family caregivers, sampled by a care support center and a visiting nurse station. They consented to be interviewed after receiving thorough information about the study. The underlying ideas which were regarded as the principal factors involved in continual caregiving from 125 codes they talked about were “a will to care obtained from persons receiving nursing care,” “a hunch that the patient's need would surely be met,” “the amount and quality of support,” “improvement of care techniques about peripheral conditions (complications?),” “acceptance of dementia,” “unpredictable response,” “difficulty in coping with peripheral conditions,” and “insufficient support in an emergency.” It was found that to continue nursing care at home, caregivers surmounted a host of obstables arising from “unpredictable response,” “difficulty in coping with peripheral conditions” and “insufficient support in an emergency” by dint of “acceptance of dementia” and “improvement of care techniques about peripheral conditions.” They were encouraged by “a will to care obtained from persons receiving nursing care” and “the quality and quantity of support” from other members of their families, relatives, neighbors and professionals. These were prime movers behind their efforts to get over the difficulties. They also had had “a hunch that the patient's need would surely be met,” which made them decide to continue home nursing care.