proiectul RING
informatii proiect
Formal caregiver
Data were gathered from 204 formal care givers; yet, only did 199 of the respondents answer this question. Their average age was 39, ranging from 20 to 80 years. Most formal care givers are female (77.3%), which means that male caregivers’ share is greater in the formal group than in the informal one. The most frequent problem thought formal caregivers was stress (54.2%), followed by insomnia (25%), medical problems (22.5%), and in the last place depression (11.1%). In relation to the drug intake for the treatment of these disorders, 19.4% answered yes when asked if they were in treatment for these psychological and medical problems. A large number of formal caregivers had received training (72.1%).
Half of them perceive having enough time for their own activities (49.3%) and enough time to spend with their family and friends (46.1%). These figures are a bit higher than the ones found in informal care givers, which stated 37.8% and 38.9% respectively. Let us recall that most informal care givers live with the one they care for (56%) and 84% are family-related. In this respect, the vast majority of caregivers think that they would like to ask for more formal support.
Formal caregiver’s training needs
It is of interest to know the training needs of this population in order to provide them with useful tools to cope with their daily activity. In this sense the 87.2% of the formal caregivers estimate of interest to more infor¬mation about the characteristics and evolution of the disease of the person they care for, to have more information about how to relate to the person they care for (79.3%) and to get psychological and emotional support (39.7%).
Regarding the topics they would like to be trained in, they address the following: skills to the management of the behavioural problems of the patient (60.8%), psychological and emotional support for the caregiver (39.7%) and skills to improve the relationship between the caregiver and other people (43.1%). They would like to get this information by means of: Training courses (62.8%), meetings with professionals (58.8%), Booklets (31.7%), Specific websites (18.3%), DVDs (15.7%), TV, radio (10.1%), and other (4%).
