Analysis of Role Sharing between Family Care Givers and Professional Carers

——Focusing on the Burden of Communication between Them and the Ways Their Roles are Defined——

Abstract

This paper analyzes role sharing between family members caring for their elderly co-resident relatives and professional carers, such as home helps, nurses and care managers, with a focus on the burden of communication between them, and the ways in which their roles are defined.
The results are as follows. On the one hand, professional carers confine their roles to a form of care that may employ many staff. On the other hand, family care givers desire as few staff as possible, as the burden on communication, especially information exchange, for family care receivers is thereby mitigated. Because of these differences between the role sharing practices of professional carers and the desires of family caregivers, the burden involved in the exchange of information about the person directly receiving care for family caregivers gets heavier.