Support/services among family caregivers of persons with dementia--perceived importance and services received.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to examine what family caregivers of persons with dementia perceive as important types of support/services in relation to experienced negative impact (NI) due to the caregiver situation, and to investigate if caregivers receive the support/services perceived as important.

METHOD

The study was based on the Swedish part of the EUROFAMCARE project and included 110 caregivers of persons with dementia. Data were collected primarily through structured telephone interviews. The caregivers were divided into two groups, a higher NI group and a lower NI group, based on the NI scale from the COPE index.

RESULTS

Getting information and having someone to talk to were perceived as very important types of support/services by the highest proportion of caregivers in both groups. Data indicated only one significant difference; a higher proportion of caregivers in the higher NI group reported being able to participate in activities outside of caring as very important. There was also an indication that a higher proportion of caregivers in the lower NI group perceived information about the disease as very important. Support/services perceived as important by the caregivers were received both to a high and a low degree.

CONCLUSION

The results from this study suggest that there is almost no difference between groups of caregivers experiencing higher and lower NI regarding their perception of what are important types of support/services. The caregivers rated different types of support/services within the areas of information, relief and counselling as very important.