A Study on Well-being of Wives’ Who Are Looking after Aged Husbands at Home

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to consider the ideal way of family support by clarifying the factors which relate to Well-being of wives who are helping aged husbands at home and also analizing these factors through the time passage of caring at home.

The study method executed a semi-structural interview to 21 persons who had approved the investigation by home visit. The analysis objects in this paper are 17 wives who looked after their husbands. The way of analysis was classifying the interview records into wives’ Well-being categories and located them in the time passage of caring.

The results were as follows:

1) The six factors which related to wives’ Well-being were extracted. They were: (a) marital relationship, (b) wives’ social participation, (c) the relations of family and relatives, (d) caring techniques, (e) wives’ physical health, and (f) adaptation to living environment.

2) The intimacy of marital relationship and the husbands’ stabilized condition improved wives’ Well-being. On the other hand, communication gap between a wife and husband hurted wives’ Well-being.

3) Wives’ social participation was a factor to improve their Well-being.

4) The relations of family and the relatives were observed both directions of which wives’ Well-being was improved or hurted.

5) The six factors which related to wives’ Well-being changed in the time passage of caring.

Therefore, the idea of the family support along the time passage of caring was suggested.