Experiences of long‐term home care as an informal caregiver to a spouse: gendered meanings in everyday life for female carers

Eriksson, Henrik; Sandberg, Jonas; Hellström, Ingrid

doi:10.1111/j.1748-3743.2012.00340.x

Cited by 48 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Recent research shows that there are often different expectations about men and women and that these expectations create different starting positions for men and women as caregivers (e.g. Eriksson and Sandberg 2007;Eriksson et al 2008;Sandberg and Eriksson 2008;Eriksson and Sandberg 2010;Hanlon 2012;Eriksson et al 2013). In relation to the informants and the empirical material in this study, it is thus interesting to examine this issue in regard to the line of reasoning that is dominant for these sons and sons-in-law when performing care for elderly parents or in-laws (i.e.…”

Section: First Generation Care Researchers' Concepts Of Carementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Now I will turn the focus to the two studies included in this key idea that examine the gendered meaning of providing care to a person with dementia. In a Swedish qualitative study, Eriksson et al (2013) 67 aimed to explore, from a feminist perspective, the gendered meaning of the female caregiver role as experienced by women giving care to a partner suffering from dementia. The findings show that the women verbalized a 66 Betts Adams (2006) conducted interviews with 20 caregivers (10 men and 10 women).…”

Section: The Key Idea Of Cognitive Impairmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Men do care! : A gender-aware and masculinity-informed contribution to caregiving scholarship

Wallroth

2016

Linköping Studies in Arts and Sciences

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In caregiving literature, it is often the female gender that has been the focus of attention, and in particular women's unpaid labor. Studies also tend to make comparisons between men's and women's caregiving, using men's caregiving experiences to show not only that women face greater burdens, but also that men's needs can be disregarded. This means that while gender analyses are not uncommon in the caregiving literature, gender tends to be equated with womanhood. The research problem that this dissertation addresses is therefore the gender bias that characterizes caregiving scholarship at present and the fact that this bias is impeding us from moving the debates on care and caregiving forward. The aim of the dissertation is twofold. Firstly, it attempts to contribute to the rectification of the gender bias in question by focusing on men's caregiving and answering the following research questions: What motivates men to provide care for their elderly parents? How do adult sons experience caregiving? What do adult sons think that care and caregiving are, i.e. what are their perspectives on care? Secondly, this dissertation also aims to explore whether a gender-aware and masculinity-informed perspective can be used to enhance our understanding of caregiving. Thus, through a phenomenological analysis of interviews with 19 caregiving adult sons and sons-in-law, this dissertation discusses how motives, experiences and perspectives, which have so far been interpreted as unique to women, are also matters that men talk about and consider important in caregiving. The dissertation argues therefore that much could be gained if we were to rectify the gender bias that characterizes the literature on family caregiving and explore caregiving men in the genderaware and masculinity-informed way that is lacking in this literature at present. Inspired by the debate within studies of masculinity, the dissertation argues that within the debate on care there is a hegemony of care which has so far tended to exclude men's perspectives on caregiving because literature on family caregiving has regarded women as the ideal caregivers. This dissertation shows that a gender-aware and masculinity-informed perspective on care can increase our understanding of family caregiving and contribute to the rectification of the gender bias that care research suffers from. Against this backdrop, it is proposed that caregiving men should not solely be regarded as empirically interesting. This is because they are an unexploited and theoretically profuse source of information about caregiving.

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Section: First Generation Care Researchers' Concepts Of Carementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Key Idea Of Cognitive Impairmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Men do care! : A gender-aware and masculinity-informed contribution to caregiving scholarship

Wallroth

2016

Linköping Studies in Arts and Sciences

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“…There was a recognised lack of fairness that the men were involved in decision making about care, but not in the day to day aspects of care. Eriksson et al (2013) Sweden to explore the gendered meaning of long-term caregiving from the perspective of women providing home care for a spouse suffering from dementia.…”

Section: Study Country Aims and Objectives Methods Key Findings Relatingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The decline in cognitive function experienced by people with dementia means increasing levels of care, often provided by women, usually wives, daughters, or daughters-in-law (World Health Organisation and Alzheimer's Disease International, 2012;Gray et al, 2009;Wezel et al, 2016;Ono et al, 2010). Most partners or adult children providing long-term support for someone living with dementia will experience relational and role change (Dunham & Cannon, 2008;Boylestein & Hayes, 2012;Toepfer et al, 2014) whereby they will eventually see themselves as a carer or caregiver -and these dynamics are often experienced differently for women and men (Carter et al, 2012;Boylestein & Hayes, 2012;Baker & Robertson, 2008;Friedmann & Buckwalter, 2014;Eriksson et al, 2013;Hayes et al, 2010;Russell, 2007;Calasanti & King, 2007;Dunkle et al, 2014). While husbands appeared to find it more challenging to adapt to taking on new daily household tasks, such as taking on the role of being the food provider (Russell, 2007;Boyle, 2013;Fjellström et al, 2010), adding to their stress as a caregiver, they were more likely to ask for help to perform these tasks (Sun et al, 2008), and have more informal help (Brown et al, 2007;Forbes et al, 2008).…”

Section: Roles and Identitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of dementia on women internationally: An integrative review

Erol

Brooker

Peel

2016

Health Care for Women International

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Women are disproportionately affected by dementia, both in terms of developing dementia and becoming caregivers. We conducted an integrative review of English language literature of the issues affecting women in relation to dementia from an international perspective. The majority of relevant studies were conducted in high income countries, and none were from low-income countries. The effects of caregiving on health, wellbeing and finances are greater for women; issues facing women, particularly in low and middle-income countries need to be better understood.Research should focus on building resilience to help people adjust and cope long term.Dementia is a global public health issue that disproportionately affects women, either through developing the condition themselves, or as a carer for someone with dementia. The effects on women of living with or caring for someone with dementia from an international perspective needs to be more fully understood. In our review of the published literature, we explore the impact of dementia on changing roles, identity, wellbeing and finances for women in both high-income and low-and middle income countries. An improved understanding of these factors can support research, and policy developments, that address the issues specifically relevant to women.As age is the greatest risk factor for dementia, and women have a greater life expectancy worldwide than men, a larger number of people with dementia are women (Alzheimer's Association, 2014).There are also clinical differences between genders in disease risk and severity, especially in relation to dementia and cognition (Carter et al., 2012). There is a significant association between age, gender, and dementia in many areas of the world, with women showing a higher prevalence rate for dementia than men (Bamford, 2011;Takeda et al., 2011; Alzheimer's Disease International, 2015) expectation that women will assume caregiving roles (Godfrey & Warshaw, 2009;Lantz, 2009;Gibbons et al., 2014). In many studies of dementia caregivers, all or most participants are women, reflecting the disproportionate extent to which women are relied upon as carers, although few reports focus on gender specifically (Robinson et al., 2014). Therefore the assumption that women provide informal care to people with dementia is embedded (often implicitly) in much of the existing research.The financial impact of providing dementia care on family caregivers is substantial; caregivers in the United States reported that they were reluctant to take time off work to provide care, or took on additional work to cover caregiving costs, which had increased because of the recent economic downturn (Evercare, 2009). Women may also have the responsibility of caring for young children alongside caring for a parent with dementia -referred to as the 'sandwich generation' (Solberg et 3 al., 2014). Despite this (often dual) caring responsibility, families often prefer , for a variety of cultural, obligational and practical reasons to continue to provide care at ho...

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“…Participants' understanding of challenging behaviour was explored by asking them to provide examples of experiences where they had dealt with behaviour that they considered to be challenging. The participants were personal contacts of one of the authors and are described below using pseudonyms: There were more females involved in the study than males and while no statistics are available regarding the demographics of seasonal care workers, it is widely evidenced that females are more likely to take on these roles (Alamgir et al, 2009;Eriksson, Sandberg and Hellström, 2013).…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘It’s a matter of your personality more than anything else’

Etheridge

Senior²

2016

J Intellect Disabil

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The impact on full-time carers of children with intellectual disabilities who exhibit challenging behaviour has been well researched (e.g. Lach et al., 2009;Shah et al., 2010;Wodehouse and McGill, 2009), however there is to date no published research into the impact of behaviour that challenges on seasonal carers . Five participants who had been employed in summer playschemes for children and young people (up to the age of 18) were interviewed about their experiences of behaviour that challenges. The transcripts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) which revealed six superordinate themes; the belief in and sanctuary of temporary work, emotional impact, personality and gender, strength through knowledge, communication difficulties and the belief in integration. Seasonal workers discussed suppressing their emotions in order to stay in control of a challenging situation, using coping styles developed through experience or based on personal skills; it is suggested that formalised training, particularly regarding non-verbal communication, would support playscheme workers in the management of and adaption to challenging behaviour. Journal of Intellectual Disabilities 0(0)2

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Experiences of long‐term home care as an informal caregiver to a spouse: gendered meanings in everyday life for female carers

Abstract: Female carers face difficulties in always living up to gendered standards and this need to be considered when evaluating policies and practices for family carers.

Cited by 48 publications

References 24 publications

Men do care! : A gender-aware and masculinity-informed contribution to caregiving scholarship

Men do care! : A gender-aware and masculinity-informed contribution to caregiving scholarship

The impact of dementia on women internationally: An integrative review

‘It’s a matter of your personality more than anything else’

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