Family Caregivers' Burdens and Perceived Need for Home Care Services in the Taipei Metropolitan Area

The burden on family care givers were heavy and they desired to receive some services to help them to continuously take care of patients in homes; and the combination of health insurance with social welfare to cover home care services; and better connection between home care system and other health care systems were recommended.

Abstract

This study was designed to evaluate the family caregivers' burdens and identify their perceived needs for home care services. The family caregiver was defined as the patient's family who spends most time to take care of the patient at home and frequently contacts with home care personnel. In total, 152 enrollment files of patients and care givers in the Taipei Metropolitan Area were obtained. Virtually, 110 family caregivers were interviewed at home. Family caregivers' burdens referred to the amount of time family caregivers spent in caregiving, problems related to the confinement from caregiving experienced by the family care giver, and how much support form family members during weekdays and on the weekend. Using a five-point Likert scale, family caregivers checked their degree of need for each of 57 items of home care services. Their responses ranged from ”strongly desired” to ”not at all desired”. More than 96.0% of the family care givers spent 7 days a week and at least 12 hours a day to take care of patients. About eighty per cent and 70.9% of the respondents suffered from limitations on social activities, and need to take care of the patients when they themselves are not well respectively. Fifty percent of family care givers needed to take on other housework and more than half of those interviewee had no assistance from family members during weekdays and over weekend. Services from social workers, technicians for maintaining medical equipment, rehabilitation personnel, physicians, home care nurses and someone, who was trained by the home care agency to temporarily take care of patients for family caregivers, were needed by more than two-third of the interviewee. About three-quarters of respondents stated that a good time for teaching them the needed skills is when patients are hospitalized. Fifty-one per cent of the interviewed stated that patients ought to get the needed preventive services. These findings indicated that the burden on family care givers were heavy; and they desired to receive some services to help them to continuously take care of patients in homes. According to results from this study, the combination of health insurance with social welfare to cover home care services; and better connection between home care system and other health care systems were recommended.