Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify the relationships between caregiving-related daily hassles and help-seeking behaviors in family caregivers of elderly, and to aim at obtaining the basic information about construction of social support system for family caregivers. Two-hundred twenty three family caregivers who use home care support office were surveyed. The questionnaire included the caregiver's characteristics, recipient's characteristics, caregiving-related daily hassles and help-seeking behaviors. We used the data of 112 family caregivers, and examined the causal relationship model in which weight of caregiving-daily hassles influences help-seeking behaviors, by using the structural equation modeling. The results were as follows, 1) "time constraint", caregiver's gender and stage of long-term care-need were significantly associated with "informal network except relatives", 2) "housework" was significantly associated with "formal network", 3) recipient's gender was significantly associated with "family members and relatives". The above results emphasize the need to construct the social support system for family caregivers in consideration of the relationships between caregiving-related daily hassles and preferences for seeking-help.
