Roles and Responsibilities of Family Home Caregivers for Elderly People in Qatar: Experiences and Challenges

Abstract

The family, as a social institution in Qatar, is the main care provider for its older adult members. In this paper we examine what caregivers do -their work practices -and the different roles and responsibilities that home caregivers perform when providing care for elderly persons in Qatar. The findings of this study were based from a larger study using qualitative descriptive design. This article demonstrates the work practices and main challenges that caregivers face while taking care of their elderly. We argue that a main source of stress for caregivers is the lack of formal services and supports geared towards individuals caring for their ageing loved ones; addressing this service gap would alleviate some of the demands associated with caregiving. The paper will present exemplars of caregivers taking care of their elderly relative. These exemplars are used to support the analysis which is clustered around identified related themes. The main findings regarding the challenges that caregivers face include: feelings of responsibility; dependency on caregiver; emotional care; social planning; problem solving; and environmental quality. All of the themes impacted the health of the caregivers and led to stress and burden on the life of the caregiver.

The experiences of family caregivers of people with severe mental illness in the Middle East: A systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative data

“…Some research has been conducted on the experiences of caregivers caring for relatives with different mental health needs. One study explored the experiences of caregivers of elderly people in Qatar and found that stress and burden was one of the main factors that negatively impacted the caregivers [ 24 ]. Some research has been conducted on caregivers’ experiences of caring for people with Alzheimer’s disease in Israel and Iran, which demonstrated that caregivers experienced stigmatizing behaviors from the public and family.…”

Sociocultural insights on dementia care-giving in Arab and Muslim communities: the perspectives of family care-givers

“…In this paper, we adopt the definition of Liu et al (2020: 442) of care-giver burden as ‘the level of multifaceted strain perceived by the caregiver from caring for a family member and/or loved one over time’ due to its consistency with how care-givers in our study experienced and articulated the care-giving journey. With most studies on burden of care and positive rewards generated in the West 6 and few within the Qatari context (Al Sulaiti et al , 2008; Abdelmoneium et al , 2017; Hammad et al , 2019), it is evident that more attention and research is called for considering the region's growing ageing population, the associated risks for higher incidences of ADRD among this population group and a predominant reliance on family care-givers.…”

“…The care-giving experience Studies have shown that most care-giving occurs in the informal sector, highlighting the significant role of families in long-term care-giving for older persons (see Bond, 1992;Walker et al, 1995;Aranda and Knight, 1997;Gaugler and Teaster, 2006). In the Arab region, informal care for older persons mostly occurs in the home and is performed by family members, privately hired nurses or domestic staff (Hamdan, 2009;Abdelmoneium and Alharahsheh, 2016;Abdelmoneium et al, 2017). Family members assist with activities of daily living, management of care-giving in response to their loved one's needs, administering medication and health-care professionals' advice, overseeing nutrition and feeding support, accompaniment to medical appointments, attention to their loved ones' overall wellbeing, and supporting with other comorbidities (e.g.…”

“…The family care-givers' dataset is presented in this paper. 8 According to the Doha International Family Institute's Report on Caregiving for the Elderly (Abdelmoneium et al, 2017) conducted in Qatar in 2017, primary care-giving is defined as those responsible for care-giving tasks for older persons' activities of daily living (ADL), such as bathing, dressing, grooming, oral hygiene, toileting, transferring to bed/chair, walking, climbing, and feeding as well…”

Dementia caregiving in the Middle East and North Africa: A scoping review

“…Further, welfare systems in these countries tend to provide institutional care options for the elderly. Per contra, in Arab societies, the collectivist structure, the primacy of extended kin relations, the obligation to honor parents and the expectation of keeping private "issues" within the home all combine to contour the caregiving landscape and shape caregiving styles and experiences (Abdelmoneium & Alharahsheh, 2016;Abdelmoneium et al, 2017;Fakhr El-Islam, 2008;Hamdan, 2009). While experiences of dementia caregiving in the MENA region may parallel those of the West, exploring dementia care in collectivist societies, which are characterized by strong extended family relationships, will provide new insights for more inclusive client-family centered approaches to care.…”