Health & social care in the community
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Health Soc Care Community · May 2014
Mentoring at Men's Sheds: an international survey about a community approach to health and well-being.
Men's Sheds are named within the Australian and Irish National Male Health Policies as an exemplar of male health and well-being and offer a range of formal and informal mentoring to counter the known consequences of social exclusion. The study aimed to report on whether Men's Sheds undertake mentoring programmes, and if so, who is being mentored; are mentors being trained, and if so by whom; and the perceived effectiveness of the mentoring programme. Furthermore, the study aimed to explore associations between sheds with a mentoring programme and factors that reflect an inclusive and a health-focused environment. ⋯ Inter-generational mentoring is the most frequently occurring type of mentoring programme. While training mentors occurs at some sheds, the efficacy of this training and programme outcomes are unknown. A typology of shed types appears to be emerging based on a divergence of sheds with a more utilitarian focus and sheds that appear to embrace a health and well-being focus.
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Health Soc Care Community · May 2014
The contributions of persons in the work environment to the self-identity of persons with mental health problems: a study in Israel.
This study explores the contribution of others in the workplace to the self-identity and job integration of persons with severe mental health problems. Thematic content analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted in 2009 with 15 Israelis with severe mental health problems who work in a variety of frameworks (protected and supported employment and open market) revealed three main themes: (i) dissatisfaction with the protected work settings in which they were initially employed; (ii) the importance they attributed to their relationships with others in their workplace; and (iii) the change in self-identity they underwent from persons defined by their mental health problems to persons who had worth, abilities and being beyond their illness. The findings underscore the important role of managers and colleagues in integrating persons with mental health problems at work and in strengthening the self-identity of those individuals.
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Health Soc Care Community · Mar 2014
Informal caregivers' participation when older adults in Norway are discharged from the hospital.
This paper describes the participation of informal caregivers in the discharge process when patients aged 80 and over who were admitted from home to different hospitals in Norway were discharged to long-term community care. Data for this cross-sectional survey were collected through telephone interviews with a consecutive sample of 262 caregivers recruited between October 2007 and May 2009. The Discharge of Elderly Questionnaire was developed by the research team and was designed to elicit data concerning informal caregivers' self-reported perceptions on participation in the discharge process. ⋯ Caregivers of patients with a hearing impairment had higher odds of reporting co-operation (OR = 1.722, P = 0.049) than caregivers of patients with no such impairment. The length of hospital stay, the caregiver's and patient's gender and education level were not significantly associated with caregiver's co-operation. The informal caregivers' experiences with information practices and user participation in hospitals highlight important challenges that must be taken seriously to ensure co-operation between families and hospitals when elderly patients are discharged back to the community.
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Health Soc Care Community · Mar 2014
Comparative StudyDifferential impacts of care-giving across three caregiver groups in Canada: end-of-life care, long-term care and short-term care.
Using data from Statistic Canada's General Social Survey Cycle 21 (GSS 2007), this study explores whether differences exist in the impacts of care-giving among three groups of caregivers providing informal care either in the caregiver's or recipient's home, or in other locations within the community: (i) those providing end-of-life (EOL) care (n = 471); (ii) those providing long-term care (more than 2 years) for someone with a chronic condition or long-term illness (n = 2722); and (iii) those providing short-term care (less than 2 years) for someone with a chronic condition or long-term illness (n = 2381). This study lays out the variation in sociodemographic characteristics across the three caregiver groups while also building on our understanding of the differential impacts of care-giving through an analysis of determinants. All three groups of caregivers shared a number of sociodemographic characteristics, including being female, married, employed and living in a Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). ⋯ The impacts of EOL care-giving also negatively influence employment for caregivers when compared with the other caregiver groups. Consequently, EOL caregivers, overall, experienced greater negative impacts, including negative health outcomes, than did long-term or short-term caregivers. This provides the evidence for the assertion that EOL care-giving is the most intense type of care-giving, potentially causing the greatest caregiver burden; this is shown through the greater negative impacts experienced by the EOL caregivers when compared with the short-term and long-term caregivers.
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Health Soc Care Community · Jan 2014
The magnitude, share and determinants of unpaid care costs for home-based palliative care service provision in Toronto, Canada.
With increasing emphasis on the provision of home-based palliative care in Canada, economic evaluation is warranted, given its tremendous demands on family caregivers. Despite this, very little is known about the economic outcomes associated with home-based unpaid care-giving at the end of life. The aims of this study were to (i) assess the magnitude and share of unpaid care costs in total healthcare costs for home-based palliative care patients, from a societal perspective and (ii) examine the sociodemographic and clinical factors that account for variations in this share. ⋯ Seemingly unrelated regression estimation suggested that the share of unpaid care costs of total costs was driven by patients' and caregivers' sociodemographic characteristics. Results suggest that overwhelming the proportion of palliative care costs is unpaid care-giving. This share of costs requires urgent attention to identify interventions aimed at alleviating the heavy financial burden and to ultimately ensure the viability of home-based palliative care in future.