• Bmc Fam Pract · Jan 2006

    An exploratory study of GP awareness of carer emotional needs in Western Australia.

    • Caroline E Bulsara and Noreen Fynn.
    • Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development Unit, General Practice, University of Western Australia, 328 Stirling Highway, Claremont, 6010, Western Australia. cbulsara@meddent.uwa.edu.au
    • Bmc Fam Pract. 2006 Jan 1;7:33.

    BackgroundThe impact of caring for a family member or friend is a life changing experience. Often carers are struggling to cope with ongoing demands of caring for someone. At some point, most carers will approach their family physician for advice on aspects of their role. Carers Western Australia sought information and opinions of General Practitioners (GPs) regarding being a carer. This exploratory survey was to assess the perceptions of Western Australian GPs regarding their role in providing information and support to carers and their awareness of carer needs and issues.MethodsA telephone survey design of an opportunistic sample of 66 Western Australian GPs was conducted. The responses were both closed and open-ended questions to allow for probing of responses. Responses were analysed using both qualitative and quantitative analysis.ResultsGPs are generally aware of their role in regard to carers and most doctors (88%) said that they had been approached for help in accessing services by carers. A majority of respondents said that carers and spoken to them (70%) and asked for help with (77%) emotional needs. However, when asked how these needs are met, GPs tended to provide practical assistance for the care recipient and carer as a means of addressing those needs. This primarily included providing referral to services to ensure that the carer has practical assistance in caring for the person. However, GPs are less able to provide the necessary emotional or psychological support needed by carers before crisis point is reached. Most doctors said that they had experienced difficulties in providing assistance to carers (84%) at some time.ConclusionGPs may be unable or unwilling to provide the necessary assistance to carers who are showing signs of carer burnout and stress. The GP needs to adopt a more holistic approach when treating a patient as to the interaction with the caregiver.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…