Ezulike Juliet Chigozie Donatus, Lu Shiyu, Chiu Marcus Yu Lung
School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
Emerging Researchers and Professionals of Ageing -Africa Network (ERPAAN).
Gerontologist. 2025 Aug 19. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnaf186.
Many studies on informal caregiving experiences recruited samples from clinical settings or pre-existing datasets, resulting in suspected selection biases. There is also a limited understanding of how culture shapes the perceptions of positive caregiving beyond the Asian context. In Nigeria, existing studies on older adults' care primarily focus on young and middle-aged caregivers. This study fills existing gaps by investigating the experiences of informal caregiving among community-dwelling older carers in Nigeria.
Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted with community-dwelling older informal caregivers aged 54-88 years against the backdrop of a life expectancy of 53 years in Nigeria. Van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenological design guided this study. We managed the qualitative data with QSR NVivo 12 software.
Our findings include themes of financial constraint, poor health, a crowded-out personal life, a mismatch between care recipients' expectations and caregivers' capacity, blessings from God, benefits elicited by reciprocity, and individuals' perception of the intrinsic worth of caregiving.
Our findings highlight both the challenging and rewarding aspects of informal caregiving. In the absence of formal support systems, the demands of caregiving may have a more pronounced impact on caregivers in Nigeria. Moreover, the nuances in our participants' experience of positive caregiving outcomes are shaped by their adherence to Afrocentric cultural norms. Our findings highlight the need to develop tailored support programs and a deeper level of work to fortify cultural norms that promote the wellbeing of older people in the family in Nigeria.
许多关于非正式照护经历的研究从临床环境或现有数据集中抽取样本，这可能导致选择偏差。对于文化如何塑造亚洲以外地区对积极照护的认知，人们的了解也有限。在尼日利亚，现有的关于老年人照护的研究主要聚焦于年轻和中年照护者。本研究通过调查尼日利亚社区居住的老年照护者的非正式照护经历来填补现有空白。
在尼日利亚人均预期寿命为53岁的背景下，对30名年龄在54 - 88岁的社区居住的老年非正式照护者进行了深入访谈。本研究采用范曼的诠释现象学设计。我们使用QSR NVivo 12软件管理定性数据。
我们的研究结果包括经济拮据、健康状况不佳、个人生活被挤占、受照护者期望与照护者能力不匹配、上帝的祝福、互惠带来的益处以及个人对照护内在价值的认知等主题。
我们的研究结果凸显了非正式照护既有挑战性又有回报的方面。在缺乏正式支持系统的情况下，照护需求可能对尼日利亚的照护者产生更显著的影响。此外，我们的参与者对积极照护结果的体验中的细微差别是由他们对非洲中心文化规范的遵循所塑造的。我们的研究结果强调需要制定量身定制的支持计划，并开展更深入的工作来强化促进尼日利亚家庭中老年人福祉的文化规范。
