Rose Louise, Saha Sian, Flowers Emily, Ang Chee Siang, Casson Alexander J, Condell Joan, Matcham Faith, Robinson Tony, Rooksby John
Faculty of Nursing Midwifery & Palliative Care, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
School of Computing, Kent and Medway Medical School, University of Kent, Kent, United Kingdom.
J Med Internet Res. 2025 Apr 24;27:e66034. doi: 10.2196/66034.
Family caregivers provide essential care in the home to millions of individuals around the globe annually. However, family caregiving results in considerable burden, financial hardship, stress, and psychological morbidity. Identifying and managing stress in caregivers is important as they have a dual role in managing their own health as well as that of the person they care for. If stress becomes overwhelming, a caregiver may no longer be able to perform this essential role. Digital methods of stress monitoring may be 1 strategy for identifying effective interventions to relieve caregiver burden and stress.
This study aims to explore the perceived acceptability, challenges, and opportunities of using digital and biosensing technologies to measure caregiver stress.
We conducted a descriptive qualitative study using semistructured interviews with an interview guide structured to obtain qualitative data addressing our study aims. We used reflexive thematic analysis methods. We recruited adult family caregivers (aged 18 years and older) currently or previously caring for an adult in the home with significant health issues. Interview questions focused on stress monitoring more generally and on ecological momentary assessment, remote monitoring technologies such as smartwatches, and fluid biosensors.
We recruited 27 family caregivers of whom 19 (70%) were currently in a caregiving role, and the remainder were previously in a caregiving role. We identified 3 themes with 10 subthemes addressing elements of acceptability, challenges, and opportunities of using digital and biosensing technologies to measure caregiver stress The themes comprised "providing meaningful data" with subthemes of "monitoring without action is pointless," "monitoring that enables self-management," and "seeing the bigger picture"; "low-burden monitoring" with subthemes of "low effort," "practical alongside daily routines," and "retaining control over monitoring"; and "inadvertent harms of stress monitoring" with subthemes of "stigma of stress," "need for discretion," "contributing to stress," and "trust."
In this descriptive qualitative study examining the perspectives of a diverse sample of family caregivers on methods of stress monitoring, we identified 3 themes addressing elements of acceptability, challenges, and opportunities. These provide useful considerations for the use of stress monitoring and implementation of interventions to ameliorate family caregivers' stress of relevance to social care and community teams, researchers, and policy makers. These include providing meaningful situationally specific data resulting in action, that does not contribute to caregiver burden, or inadvertent harm to either the caregiver or the care recipient.
家庭照顾者每年为全球数百万居家的个人提供至关重要的照顾。然而，家庭照顾会带来相当大的负担、经济困难、压力和心理疾病。识别并管理照顾者的压力很重要，因为他们在管理自身健康以及所照顾之人的健康方面发挥着双重作用。如果压力变得无法承受，照顾者可能就无法再履行这一重要职责。压力监测的数字方法可能是识别有效干预措施以减轻照顾者负担和压力的一种策略。
本研究旨在探讨使用数字和生物传感技术来测量照顾者压力的可感知的可接受性、挑战和机遇。
我们进行了一项描述性定性研究，采用半结构化访谈，并使用一份访谈指南，该指南旨在获取解决我们研究目标的定性数据。我们采用了反思性主题分析方法。我们招募了目前或曾经在家中照顾患有重大健康问题的成年人的成年家庭照顾者（年龄在18岁及以上）。访谈问题更普遍地聚焦于压力监测以及生态瞬时评估、智能手表等远程监测技术和液体生物传感器。
我们招募了27名家庭照顾者，其中19名（70%）目前处于照顾角色，其余的以前处于照顾角色。我们确定了3个主题和10个子主题，涉及使用数字和生物传感技术测量照顾者压力的可接受性、挑战和机遇等要素。这些主题包括“提供有意义的数据”，其子主题有“无行动的监测毫无意义”“有助于自我管理的监测”和“纵观全局”；“低负担监测”，其子主题有“低投入”“与日常活动并行实用”和“保持对监测的控制权”；以及“压力监测的意外危害”，其子主题有“压力的污名化”“需要谨慎”“加剧压力”和“信任”。
在这项描述性定性研究中，我们考察了不同样本的家庭照顾者对压力监测方法的看法，确定了涉及可接受性、挑战和机遇等要素的3个主题。这些为压力监测的使用以及实施干预措施以减轻家庭照顾者的压力提供了有益的考虑因素，对社会护理和社区团队、研究人员及政策制定者具有相关性。这些因素包括提供有意义的具体情境数据以促成行动，且不会增加照顾者负担，也不会对照顾者或受照顾者造成意外伤害。
