Building community engagement with caregivers through online interaction and a salutogenic approach in a period of isolation
Mas-Casadesús, Olga (Universitat de Girona)
de la Torre-Pérez, Laura (Institut de Recerca Sant Pau)
Reig-Garcia, Glòria (Universitat de Girona)
Mas-Casadesús, Anna (Investigador Independiente)
Berenguera, Anna (Institut Universitari d'Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol)
Juvinyà-Canal, Dolors (Universitat de Girona)
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Fecha:	2024
Resumen:	Informal caregivers are essential figures that deal with the effects of dependence in the elderly. However, they suffer from poorer health-related quality of life, particularly regarding mental health. Social support is crucial, but this was suspended or dramatically reduced during the Covid-19 pandemic. Salutogenesis theory explores the contributing factors for the promotion and maintenance of health. Considering all these, we offered caregivers the opportunity to join a participatory project aimed at creating communication spaces where they could share experiences, think together about potential solutions, and explore which salutogenic actions they used in their daily basis and how they had changed during Covid-19 restrictions. We used a qualitative methodology with a socio-constructivist and phenomenological approach and purposive sampling. We organized two focus groups consisting of online semi-structured discussions with seven participants in total. Conversations were videotaped and transcribed and we conducted content thematic analyses using the NVivo software. Caregiving in our setting are primarily women with high levels of education that do not always feel comfortable with this load because it interferes with their personal and professional lives. The pandemic increased caregivers feelings of loneliness, resignation, and burden, directly affecting their mental health. Furthermore, the disappearance of prevention programs and the difficulties to access healthcare services produced negative consequences on the already fragile elderly and their family caregivers. The pandemic and its restrictions exacerbated the problematics affecting informal caregivers. Although these people are aware of their situation and have valued knowledge of how to improve their health, they cannot always put it into practice. We call policymakers to reframe interventions aimed at caregivers by introducing the voice of the community in the planning and to rethink the management of vulnerable people and their carers in other potential health crises.
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Materia:	Caregivers ; Community engagement ; Covid-19 pandemic ; Informal caregiving ; Salutogenesis
Publicado en:	Frontiers in Medicine, Vol. 11 (february 2024) , ISSN 2296-858X

DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1229395
PMID: 38482529

11 p, 720.1 KB

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