Narrative Study of Caregiver's Experience and Utilization of Social Services Whose Care Recipients Are Waiting to Enter a Nursing Home : With Respect to Family Relationship, Spouse, Daughter-in-law and Adult Children

Abstract

We interviewed 28 caregivers whose frail elderly care recipients are waiting to enter a nursing home. We conducted this study in order to examine how caregivers felt about the care recipient, when they applied for services to assist residential care, and how they felt when they decided that their care recipient should be institutionalized. We noticed that daughter-in-law caregivers tend to wait the longest to apply for institutionalization of their care recipients and that spousal caregivers wait the next longest. We also observed that adult children caregivers are the least common users of residential care services. Caregivers expressed that they want to die with their care recipient, to kill their care recipient or to divorce their husbands. In addition, they expressed that the experience of such high stress was reduced by feeling close to their recipient, by resting during residential care services, by sharing experiences with other caregivers, and by understanding the ways in which to deal with her care recipient.