Social Support For Carers

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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. …show more content…

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

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