Carers are people who voluntarily provide care and support to someone unable to manage without them (Candeza, 2012). Regarding the target group here, the devotion of carers is for people with chronic illness. According to World Health Organization, chronic illness is the kind of diseases with long duration and slow progression. Cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes are the four major types.
Since people with chronic illness need constant care, the carers may feel stressed when taking up such an important role with overloaded responsibilities. The state of burnout will occur due to inappropriate stress management (Olpin & Hesson, 2013). Their sources of stress can be analyzed in three main dimensions.
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In terms of instrumental support, despite the Social Security Allowance Scheme provided by Hong Kong Government to offer financial assistance to people with chronic illness, the carers’ financial pressure has not been alleviated due to the unaffordable medical expenses. Apart from money, physical support is what carers want. Sharing some care-giving tasks with others can make those tasks less exhausting to them. However, some carers refuse to hire a maid because they are not willing to rely on an outsider while some hide their problems from other family members. Not only do they lose physical help, they also lose emotional support from them. In terms of informational support, carers are confused about how to get access to care-giving information. For example, a 50-year-old daughter wanted to receive advice from some professionals but she did not know where to get it and what resources are available in the community at that time (Lee, 2004). Social support keeps us from potential distress (Olpin & Hesson, 2013). As a result, the inadequacy of it fails to make carers feel loved and cared for, hence leading to the carers’ …show more content…
The carers may get a sense of guilty when the patients show no sign of recovery, especially when the patients are their parents. This can be attributed to a Chinese virtue called filial piety. They hold a belief that they should make an effort to return any favors that they owe and are responsible for the condition of the patients (Bond, 1996). On the other hand, inconsiderate patients such as depending too much on carers may increase the carers’ workload and then their
Caring for someone with significant health issues is an exhausting and stressful experience and it is hardly surprising that carers are prone to developing ‘burnout’. Observed in nursing, this phenomenon, described as ‘…a haemorrhaging of oneself for others’ is detrimental as stress over-load causes the cognitive and emotional responses to severely malfunction (O’Mahoney, 1983 cited in Farrington, 1997). Carers in this state of mind inevitably develop negative internalised and externalised feelings, including self-depletion, low self-esteem, limited energy, negativity and hopelessness (Taylor and Barling, 2004). A report conducted by Age UK highlights that 6 out of 10 carers suffer damaging conditions related to their mental health, including depression and lack of confidence. Furthermore, these feelings are often intensified by carers’ perseverance which aggravates existing disabilities, such as arthritis, crumbling spine, heart problems and cancer, and leads to further pain (Carers Trust,
According to research done by psychologist Christina Maslach, Ph.D. Burnout effects a person’s mental, emotional, physical and behavioral functioning. Maslach’s research provided the following list of typical symptoms one would experience. Mentally, Burnout can lead to confusion; impaired judgment and decision-making; forgetfulness; and decreased ability to identify alternatives, prioritize tasks, and evaluate one’s own performance. Emotionally, Burnout can cause emotional exhaustion; loss of a sense of personal accomplishment and merit; depersonalization and alienation; depression; and easy excitability, anger, and irritability. Physically, Burnout can lower energy level, change appetite and sleeping, and cause gastrointestinal problems, hypochondriacal complaints, and exhaustion. Behaviorally, Burnout can cause increased or decreased activity level; extreme fatigue; excessive isolation from coworkers, family and clients; disorganization; misplacing of items; and impaired competence on the job.
Ivancevich, Konopaske, & Matteson, 2011 defines burnout as a psychological process, brought about by unrelieved work stress that results in emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feeling of decreased accomplishment. Examples of emotional exhaustion includes; feeling drained by work, fatigue in the morning, frustrated, and do not want to work with others. Depersonalization is when a person has become emotionally hardened by their job, treat others like objects, do not care what happens to them, and feel others blame them. A low feeling of accomplishment also results from burnout. A person is unable to deal with problems effectively, identify or understand others problems, and no longer feel excited by their job. (Ivancevich et al., 2011).
Burnout occurs when a person does not have effective coping skills to deal with the demands of the work they are performing; it is also said to be chronic stress caused by the high demands of a job. Burnout has three dimensions that make it up, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Vargus, 2014). Some causes include long hours, not having enough or the proper equipment, having inadequate staffing and caring for demand...
Certain cultures that live at or below the poverty line prefer this type of assistance for their elderly family members because it allows them to have someone meet them at their home. This convenience is a big factor and provides the elderly with a way to fulfill their communal culture by living out their time at home among family, while still receiving any necessary assistance for health checks or IADL’s. This improves their quality of life by meeting their needs in a different way. These alternative methods to older adult care are more popular among minorities and cultural groups (Bookman & Kimbrel, 2011). Bookman and Kimbrel acknowledge the gap between financial status as well as culture and race, they stated, “...because elders are widely diverse by race and socioeconomic status, their families attach differing cultural meanings to care and have widely different resources with which to accomplish their care goals” (2011). Thus, creating the large gap seen in nursing home facilities. Specifically, cultures like the Chinese who maintain traditions like filial piety, in which the adult children must care for their elderly parent (Li & Buechel, 2007). This type of culture defines the line between those who view nursing homes as ideal and those who prefer a separate
Butler, R. (2008). The Carers of People with Dementia. BMJ: British Medical Journal , 336, 1260-1261.
Physical repercussions such as insomnia and fatigue, and mental repercussions of anxiety and depression. In extreme situations, burnout can lead to death or suicide. Individuals in the helping professions experience high turnover rate due to the termination of employment, either from the helping professional themselves, from not taking care of burnout as it happens, or from their employer, if the burnout accidently leads to a mistakes made at work. Therefore exploring how burnout affects the world can help provide an understanding for importance of mitigating
Furthermore, assessment of the caregiver’s perception of the health and functional status of the patient, the preparedness of the caregiver for the job of caregiving is assessed.
As a caregiver, you spend the majority of your time meeting your loved one’s needs and providing an invaluable service, but you need to care for yourself, too. That’s why it’s important for you to recognize and alleviate the symptoms of caregiver burnout. Additionally, you may contact us for reliable, professional and compassionate care that meets your loved one’s needs and fits your schedule. Whether you need us every day, once a month or occasionally, take advantage of our services as you care for your loved one and
Primary caregivers are given an opportunity to take care of their loved ones; however, this job comes with a lot of stress and its consequences (Tsai, 2003). Primary caregivers take care of those with a chronic illness such as a family member or friend, are given a task that is so immense that it induces a lot of stress. In the previous decades, many research articles have developed studies which focused on stressors that were associated with the task of being the primary caregiver; yet, a theory surrounding this topic has not been developed until the early 2000s. Tsai (2003) developed the Theory of Caregiver Stress based on the Roy Adaptation Model to identify the caregiver’s response, perceptions, and adaptations to the stress and burden that primary caregiver’s experience.
In the nursing profession, one of the primary responsibilities over a nurse is to provide care. A caregiver is “a person who provides direct care (as for children, elderly people, or the chro...
There are many issues that can be related to carers of people with dementia. The physical and psychological workload can be attributed as the most common concern among carers (Fjelltun et al., 2009). In addition, O’ Dowd (2007) has stated that carers are more likely to endure more anxiety, and feeling of liability which resulted to carers’ negligence of their own wellbeing. Moreover, carers suffer more stress than those who are not giving care to elderly with dementia. In relation to this, carers’ health is not interrelated with their emotional functioning (Bristow et al., 2008). These different reports suggested that carers undergo psychological issues more notable in comparison with just ordinary people. This can be regarded to carers’ exposure to a stressful environment.
Burnout has become a major social, cultural and health issue. It has also become globally significant. It affects all kinds of people regardless of their age, race, gender, etc. It can occur at any stage in one’s life and affect them on a physical, emotional, social or cultural level. There is a lot of stigma associated with burnout in the society. Education is key to break the stigma. The risk for burnout has risen significantly in certain occupations, notably in the field of human services. Self-awareness as well as awareness of others is important to identify the problem and treat it in the most suitable manner. This paper considers understanding burnout by examining a few
The Theory of Caregiver Stress was a significant breakthrough for the reasoning of why caregivers are so deeply affected by this job. “The Theory of Caregiver Stress was derived from the Roy Adaptation Model to use as basis in understanding the relationships among caregivers and the stress faced when caring for a chronically ill relative” (Tsai, 2003). The Theory of Caregiver stress is a middle-range theory used to predict the outcome for stress and other various side effects (Dobratz, 2011). These adverse effects are predicted by: Demographic Characteristics, Burden in Caregiving, Stressful life events, Social Support and Social Roles. Also, because of the multitude of different scenarios and background for both the patient and the caregiver, these categories are necessary to compare and effectively use the results. The theory makes four main assumptions regarding adaption: “environmental change; the caregivers’ perceptions will determine how they will respond to the environmental stimuli; the caregivers’ adaptation is a function of their environmental stimuli and adaptation level, and lastly the caregivers’ effectors are results of chronic caregiving such examples include marital satisfaction and self-...
Burnout is a response to chronic emotional stress due to those factors, resulting in reduced job productivity, and emotional and/or physical exhaustion. (Perlman & Hartman, 1982). Many studies consider burnout to be a job-related stress condition or even work-related mental health impairment, with the ICD-10 closely tying burnout with the diagnosis of work-related neurasthenia (Awa et al., 2010; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001; World Health Organization, 1992). Numerous conceptualisation of the burnout phenomenon has been posited but most researchers favour a multidimensional definition developed by Maslach and colleagues (1993; 1996) that encompasses three aspects: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment at work.