Grandchildren and dependent grandparents: a qualitative study of family caregiving for the elderly

Due to the population growth of persons aged 65 and older, there will be increasing numbers of frail, elderly requiring assistance with daily living. Often, it is families that provide care for the dependent elderly, and the typical caregiver is an adult daughter who is middle-aged. While there has been substantial research on adult children caring for parents, there have been few studies that have considered the third generation, or grandchildren, in caregiving families. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the meanings that grandchildren of physically or cognitively impaired elders give to the experience of family caregiving. A qualitative approach in the phenomenological tradition was chosen in order to capture the essence of grandchildren\u27s caregiving experiences. Ten grandchildren between the ages of 15 and 30 participated in in-depth interviews. Family legacies, or the intergenerational transmission of ways of relating to members of the family system, seemed to have significant impact on grandchildren\u27s perceptions of and involvement in caregiving for their grandparent. Caregiving behaviors and attitudes appeared to be passed down through the generations. This primary finding supported previous research. It was speculated that discrepancies in the findings from this study and past research were due to differences m the age of the grandchildren, the place m which the care recipient resides, and the nature of the care recipient\u27s impairment Benefits and gratifications received from caregiving were reported primarily by older grandchildren, whereas younger grandchildren talked more about the demands and burdens associated with eldercare

FSSBs and Elderly Care: Exploring the Role of Organizational Context on Employees’ Overall Health and Work–Family Balance Satisfaction

Fierce competition coupled with an increasing presence of dual-earning couples and blurred boundaries between work and family, increasingly render work–family lives of employees important. In this context, one strategy to enable employees achieve greater work–family interface is via Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSBs), defined as supervisors’ informal discretion to implement family-friendly policies at work. Inspired by the growth in research on FSSBs, the over-arching goal of this study is to explore (a) the triggers of FSSBs from an organizational context perspective and (b) the role of FSSBs as a mechanism to translate the impact of organizational context on subordinates’ overall health and work–family balance satisfaction. Furthermore, we expand our model by integrating the (c) role of supervisors’ and subordinates’ elderly care responsibilities as an individual boundary condition to explain how the FSSBs unfold and for whom they are most effective. Using the Work–Home Resources model (i.e., W-HR model; Ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012), we test our hypotheses with matched data of subordinates and their supervisors collected in El Salvador and Peru. Our model was largely supported. Findings point to the importance of organizational and supervisor support as well as the importance of involvement with elder-care responsibilities in driving FSSBs and enhancing employee perceptions of health and their work–family balance satisfaction

Pelayanan Kesehatan pada Warga Lanjut Usia

Abstract—One of the impacts of the national developmental success is life expectancy (UHH) that becomes more increasing which results in an increasing number of elderly. To improve the health status and life quality of the elderly, the government should be obliged to provide facilities of health care and facilitate the elderly group so that they can develop properly, to create a productive and independent elderly. In this regard, the government is developing an elderly health center so that health services that are holistic and adequate, as well as emphasizing the proactive, courteous, cross-sectoral collaboration, ease of the process, and appropriateness of service standards, can be obtained by the elderly. Promotive and preventive services can be done through the involvement and active participation of the community in the form of elderly posyandu that comes from the puskesmas or arises from the aspirations of the community itself. With adequate health services for the elderly, it is expected that improvements in the health status and quality of life of the elderly can be achieved, so that the elderly have an efficient and happy old age following their existence, in their lives together with family and community. Keywords: community, elderly, health care Abstrak—Salah satu dampak dari kesuksesan pembangunan nasional adalah Usia Harapan Hidup (UHH) yang makin meningkat yang berakibat pada jumlah lansia yang makin meningkat pula. Demi tercapainya peningkatan status kesehatan dan kualitas hidup lansia, maka seyogyanyalah pemerintah berkewajiban menyediakan sarana pelayanan kesehatan serta melakukan fasilitasi pada kelompok lansia agar dapat berkembang dengan baik, sehingga dapat tercipta lansia yang mandiri dan produktif. Sehubungan hal tersebut, maka pemerintah mengembangkan puskesmas lansia agar pelayanan kesehatan yang sifatnya holistik dan memadai, serta menekankan pada unsur proaktif, santun, kerjasama lintas sektor, kemudahan proses dan kesesuaian standar pelayanan, dapat diperoleh para lansia. Pelayanan promotif maupun preventif dapat dilakukan melalui keterlibatan dan partisipasi aktif masyarakat berupa posyandu lansia yang berasal dari puskesmas atau timbul dari aspirasi masyarakat itu sendiri. Dengan adanya pelayanan kesehatan yang memadai bagi para lansia, diharapkan peningkatan status kesehatan dan kualitas hidup lansia dapat tercapai, sehingga lansia memiliki hari tua yang berdaya guna dan juga bahagia sesuai dengan keberadaannya, dalam kehidupannya bersama dengan keluarga dan masyarakat. Kata kunci: lansia, masyarakat, pelayanan kesehata

Couples' provision of informal care for parents and parents-in-law: far from sharing equally?

This study examines whether and how couples share the provision of informal care for their parents. Four waves of the British General Household Survey contain cross-sectional information about caring for parents and parents-in-law. Descriptive and multivariate analyses were conducted on 2214 couples that provided parent care. The findings emphasise married men’s contribution to informal caring for the parental generation and at the same time demonstrate the limits of their involvement. Spouses share many parts of their care-giving but this arrangement is less common with respect to personal and physical care. The more care is required the more likely are people to participate in care for their parents-in-law. More sons-in-law than daughters-in-law provide care but, once involved, daughters-in-law provide on average more hours of care than sons-inlaw. Own full-time employment reduces both men’s and women’s caring for their parents-in-law, and men’s caring drops further if their wife is not in the labour market. The findings suggest that daughters-in-law often take direct responsibility whereas sons-in-laws’ care-giving depends more on their wives’ involvement. Children-in-laws’ informal care-giving might decrease in the future because of women’s increasing involvement in the labour market and rising levels of nonmarital cohabitation in mid-life

Outsourcing elderly care to migrant workers: the impact of gender and class on the experience of male employers

This article, based on semi-structured interviews, addresses masculinity in the international division of reproductive labour through an analysis of the impact of gender and class on the outsourcing of elderly care services to migrant care workers. In the Italian context, characterised by a limited provision of long-term care services and by cash-for-care benefits, the strategies of men as employers of migrant care workers are shaped by class and gender. The outsourcing of care to migrant workers reproduces hegemonic masculinity in so far as male employers are able to withdraw from the ‘dirty work’. At the same time, men engage with tasks which are, in principle, kept at a distance. The employers’ family status, combined with their class background, are crucial factors in shaping the heterogeneity of men’s experiences as employers and managers of care labour, and the ways in which they make sense of their masculinity

Psychometric evaluation of the German version of a social support scale of FAFHES (family functioning, family health and social support)

This is the peer reviewed version which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.12700. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.BACKGROUND: Family members often need to be supported in informal care of the elderly and desire to be involved into care planning and decision-making. Valid and reliable instruments are needed to measure how family members perceive the care and support they receive from nurses for older family members living at home. AIM: The purpose of this study was to translate the 20-item social support scale of the Family Functioning, Family Health and Social Support (FAFHES) questionnaire from English to German and test the validity and reliability of the scale among Swiss-German-speaking family caregivers of home-dwelling elderly people who receive home healthcare services. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted to test the empirical and psychometric properties of the translated and culturally adapted version of the social support questionnaire. A factor analysis with the principal component analysis PCA was used to test construct validity. The internal consistency of items was measured with the Cronbach`s alpha coefficient. RESULTS: After a rigorous translation process the original 20-item questionnaire was adapted into a 19-item version and tested with family caregivers (n = 207) of home-dwelling elderly. Psychometric testing of the German version of the social support questionnaire revealed that the three factors - affirmation, affect and concrete aid - were congruent with the original questionnaire. The accounted variance was 79.5% and the internal consistency determined by the Cronbach's alpha was 0.973. CONCLUSION: The German version of the social support scale of the FAFHES questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument to assess family perceived support on three dimensions - affirmation, affect and concrete aid - received from nursing professionals. The questionnaire should be tested further in other German-speaking population

A methodological approach to evaluate elderly-robot interactions

The relevance in the study of interaction between elderly and robots may depend on the choice of activities that robots can be developed to perform and the assessment of their impact and importance for older people. This research requires coordinated research between computer engineers and specialists in the humanities and social sciences. Being a recent research area, it is particularly relevant to carefully select the behavioural variables to be analyzed, the methodology adopted and the instruments that allow for a rigorous evaluation. Based on these assumptions, the present study aims to develop Innovative Initiatives for the Promotion of Active Aging in the EUROACE Region. The authors propose an appropriate methodology and instruments to evaluate the impact of the human-robot interaction in the promotion of a more active aging in a group of elderly in a nursing home. The analyzed variables focus on the involvement of the elderly in the activities, their capacity for initiative and to establish social interactions, indicators of well-being and a proactive attitude. The methodology of the study is mixed (qualitative and quantitative), organized as an exploratory case study. Data collection is based on naturalistic observation but variables are quantitatively assessed in a pre/post-test design. The research design identified the narratives of the elderly and the staff of the institution regarding the needs and interests of each elderly person, classified the participants according to the levels of prevailing social interactions, involvement and initiative in activities, considered important variables for an active ageing and, in this sense, demonstrated its adequacy to be used to evaluate the results of the intervention using social assistive robots.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Critical Review of Research on Families and Family Policies in Europe Conference Report

This report was produced by FAMILYPLATFORM. FAMILYPLATFORM (SSH-2009-3.2.2 Social platform on research for families and family policies) is funded by the EU’s 7th Framework Programme (€1,400,000) and has a duration of 18 months (October 2009 – March 2011). The consortium consists of the following 12 organisations: 1) Technical University Dortmund (Coordinators); 2) State Institute for Family Research, University of Bamberg; 3) Family Research Centre, University of Jyväskylä; 4) Austrian Institute for Family Studies, University of Vienna; 5) Demographic Research Institute, Budapest; 6) Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon; 7) Department of Sociology and Social research, University of Milan-Bicocca; 8) Institute of International and Social Studies, Tallinn University; 9) London School of Economics; 10) Confederation of Family Organisations in the European Union (COFACE), Brussels; 11) Forum delle Associazioni Familiari, Italy; 12) Mouvement Mondial des Mères, Brussels; Contact [email protected] or visit http://www.familyplatform.eu for more information.The aim of this Critical Review Report is to describe and report on the international conference "Families and Family Policies in Europe - A Critical Review", wich took place in Lisbon, at the Institute for Social Sciences (University of Lisbon), in May 2010. Organized by FAMILYPLATFORM consortium, the main objective of this 3 day conference was to carry out a critical review of existing research on families and family policies in Europe. Drawing on expert reviews of the state of the art, critical statements by stakeholders and policy makers, and debate on the major challenges for research and policies, the conference was organized with a view to providing a major forum for discussing and identifying the design of future family policies and research.FAMILYPLATFORM (SSH 2009.2.2 Social platform on research for families and family  policies):  funded  by  the  European  Unions 7th Framework Programme for 18 months (October 2009 – March 2011)

Aging in the Social Space

A publication called Aging in the Social Space is a compilation of studies, which deal with theoretical understanding and empirical solutions, learning about problem spheres, specifying content parallels of social, legal, economic, moral and ethical views on senior issues in society, which are closely related to each other and are interconnected. This publication focus on the case study of Poland. It is supposed to provide a multidimensional view of old age issues and issues related to aging and care for old people in society. We believe that it is natural also to name individual spheres, in which society has some eff ect, either direct or indirect, within issues concerning seniors. Learning about these spheres is the primary prerequisite for successful use of social help to seniors in society