Health Care Assignment: Caregiver’s Health Literacy In Elderly People
Question
Task: Write a health care assignment discussing the factors affecting family caregiver’s health literacy in elderly people.
Answer
Introduction
The roles of caregivers discussed in the segments of health care assignment are very important in supporting elderly people with persistence poor health conditions or physical impairment that is cognitive. Low health literacy among the caregivers who take care of such people is likely to affect the health of care recipients. There are several older adults, who stay at home and depend for help on the caregivers. When the family is not sufficient to give the required care, hiring of caregivers is done through payment. The concept of health literacy explored herein health care assignment may be defined as the knowledge, which is required for people to meet the requirements of health in the society (Abdelmoneium, Rankin & Corman, 2017). With the rise of modernization and rise in life expectancy and the problems and the problems and complexity that come with aging, dependency on care has become one of the most pertinent requirements for the older people who often find it difficult to fulfill their day to day tasks. Health literacy is same as knowledge which includes people’s motivation and degree of competence to understand health information and dynamics so that it can be applied in everyday life that helps improve the quality.
A diverse knowledge about the health system helps in improving the relationship that exists between the individual and the health system. Health literacy is defined as how caregivers are able to comprehend health care information. This health care assignment talks about the health conditions of elderly people and the health literacy that have direct impact on the patient’s health outcomes. Low health literacy has negative effects on caregiver’s performance outcome. Older patients are less willingly to communicate with medical professionals, and less willing to take their self-care into concern. Cultural backwardness and unavailability of resources are a major reason for low health literacy health literacy includes skills such as: ability to read the consent forms, able comprehend oral and written instructions by health care professionals, to act upon the advice of these professionals and other medical persons. The definitions of health literacy illustrated in the health care assignment also ask for a caregiver’s ability to update oneself in accordance to new information. Having cultural and conceptual knowledge, oral literacy, to be able to speak and write and write and numeracy are some other characteristics (Greenwood, Pound, Brearley and Smith, 2019). Health literacy must not be in accordance to individual characteristics but by the standards of the health system as well.
Article Review
Health Care Literacy Level among Formal and Non-formal Caregivers
As per the study of the article considered to prepare this health care assignment, caregivers have a significant role in taking care of patients with chronic health illness. Due to low health literacy health care has a major impact. Definition of health literacy includes the characteristics that help individuals to engage in enabling information regarding their health. Health literacy is also considered as a construct that has multiple dimensions and includes interpersonal elements which also takes into account community elements (Yuen, 2014). Since caregivers are responsible for the health of the recipient, the maximum wellness of the patient depends upon the caregiver on the basis of their health literacy. In the article by Yuen, Knight, Ricciardelli & Burney (2018) utilized in this health care assignment, the study undertakes the relationship between the caregiver and the person who is under the caregiver depending on the caregiver’s health literacy. The questions that have been included in the study of health care assignment are: how the health literacy was evaluated in caregiver’s adult care recipient. The health care literacy levels among formal and non-formal caregivers. Whether this health outcomes of the receiver is independently associated with the caregivers health literacy. The criteria for inclusion in this article on health care assignment were- the caregivers who were taking care of elderly people, the age of the care giver’s recipient was 18 years or over, the examination of caregiver’s literacy, the accepted measurement that was used to measure health literacy, in English, used original research data. The review process ran the search team, screened all other criteria for fulfillment of eligibility. The research on health care assignment that was undertaken has identified a total of 3816 articles and also 18 other secondary sources. 1117 were duplicate and excluded. For the remaining 2717 articles screening was done as per the title and abstract. 1289 caregivers from the 12 studies were considered in the analyses, which has a mean age of 54.6 years and included 74.6 females. The two studies by Eames, 2003, Rahaman 2014 had no information related to the caregiver relationship with the recipient.
The data from the studies gave the outcome that the studies that distinguished between health literacy levels used 2 measures for understanding the health literacy of the caregiver. Since the caregiver population varied for the different studies, there was no pooled effect noticed in the calculation. The relationship between the recipient and the caregiver reveals that the caregivers who have low health literacy provide poor self-care. Association was not found between caregiver health literacy and the self-care of the care given.
Educational and Behavioral Interventions for Supporting Family Caregivers
It is the aim of care giving to provide soothing effect, spiritual and emotional support, which results in the enhancement of quality of life. Family members who perform care giving are called informal caregivers which include partners, family members who take care of their near and dear ones. According to Hudson, types of interventions and the designs of study has increased in the recent few years. The interventions included psycho education, learning to cope with symptoms of recipients and its management. According to Chi, Demiris, Lewis, Walker & Langer (2016) it is noted herein health care assignment that the strategies for search included phase I which comprises clinical trials that are applied for testing the acceptability and feasibility of intervention. Phase II tests the effect of interventions under specific circumstances. Phase III examines the appropriateness of the intervention in large groups. The major aim of the review is synchronizing the research evidence based on educational and behavioral interventions for keeping up the caregiver family of the patients. The result of the study says that 14 articles were published. These were conducted in western countries US, Germany, UK, and Canada. The various forms of interventions that were included in the review were four studies included educational interventions with the objective of providing education to the caregiver for increasing their knowledge and skills. The caregivers received help from professionals and peers. 6 studies included cognitive behavioral therapy. The aim of this behavioral therapy outlined in the health care assignment is to alter the thoughts and beliefs of the people. In this study, the family caregivers were to scrutinize the relationship between their behaviors and thoughts by following this approach. Psycho education is an intervention on education that emphasizes on imparting knowledge but not necessarily changing the behavior.
Self -Gain and Positive Experiences among Family Caregivers
Caregivers give the most needed support to heart failures patients by helping them with the pharmacological and the necessary lifestyle changes that is required (Buck, 2015).it has been found through research that caregivers of differently able elders with high level of health literacy have reduced chances of depression. Evidence has also been found while developing this health care assignment that if benefits are found in care, giving it helps the caregiver to respond better.
As per Bangerter, Griffin & Dunlay (2019) it is mentioned in this health care assignment that there are signs of self-gain and positive experiences among the family caregivers of persons who suffer from heart failures. Heart failure is one serious health problems, which requires the older adults to be hospitalized. The model of the review enlightened the development on the questions that were regarding the positive and negative aspects of the profession of care giving. The caregivers mentioned their sex, age, educational level, duration of care, employment status, work hours per day and their relationship with the patient. This study undertaken in the health care assignment uses methods of exploratory design to look into the self-care of caregivers. The study was undertaken in a hospitalization in Rochester, Minnesota. The characteristics were N (%) mean (standard deviation SD) and median. Each caregiver was then categorized into age, sex, and multivariate analysis. The results showed that in total of 278 probable caregivers who were respondents were mailed the surveys, 147 of them responded(52.9%), 39 said that they were not presently a caregiver of a patient., 108 of them completed the survey, 49 caregivers who were contacted 10 caregivers did not agree to participate. The characteristics of caregivers were older women, 108 patients who suffered from heart failures their mean age was reported to be 78.0 years and more than half of them were working either part time or fulltime besides taking care of the patients.
Relationship between Health Literacy of Caregiver and the Caregivers’ Burden
The role of caregivers is very vital in providing emotional and physical support. Caregivers need to perform various jobs from household chores to chores that are daily to managing medications. The responsibilities of a formal caregiver include encouraging the patient to self-care. Those patients who have low health literacy rate often find it hard to perform self-management skills, and low psychological well-being. As per Barutcu (2019) the relationship between the health literacy of the caregiver and caregivers’ burden needs to be emphasized upon. The first instrument that was used included 12 questions which looked into the participating caregivers social and demographical characteristics, the questions gave out the following information regarding gender, age, educational status, marital status, employment status, whether they had social insurance, if they had a child, individual’s relationship with the patient. The results which came out of this survey conducted on the case scenario of health care assignment found that the mean age of the participants were 50.15 years, the average period of care giving was 9.9 years, females comprised 66.6%, 86% were married, and 54.9% were graduates from high school, 52.1% had an employment, 53.5% revealed that their expenses were same as their expenditures. 76.3% had children, and 72.1% lived with their care recipients. The mean count of caregivers was 21.72 and the mean caregiver burden was 27.31. When the individual’s characteristics were compared with that of the caregivers’ health literacy a significant relationship was found. It was also seen that men had higher health literacy and a high school degree and therefore made high incomes. Also there was a considerable amount of difference between marital status and other factors as well. In consideration of the characteristics of the personal caregiver’s there was major difference between social security and caregiver burden. With the increase in levels of education, it was seen that the health literacy increased among caregivers. With age average health literacy also decreased. The lack of health literacy is associated with stress and distress and an all inclusive frustration for the health system. All of the chronic illnesses were included in the sampling. The burden of taking care of patients with chronic illness is not mentioned in the study
Relationship between the articles
The articles that were reviewed in order to build this health care assignment clearly explained how education is very essential for caregivers to make sure they have a high health literacy rate. With high health literacy caregivers are able to understand the specific needs of their recipients. Low health literacy rate reduces the caregiver’s understanding of the self-care of the care given. Factors such as the marital status, educational status, and insurance status of the caregiver are important categories for understanding the factors that affect health literacy rate. It is also noted that care giving too comes with a lot of burden and stress especially for patient with chronic illness. Caregivers often have to go through negative behaviors, which affect their day-to-day lives. The caregiver’s lives become complicated with other multiple priorities. The role of the caregiver becomes diverse with the complexities of the disease of the older persons. Individuals do not provide care giving in isolation. They have to juggle with others responsibilities are well.
Conclusion
From the above discussion on health care assignment, it can be said that the overall health literacy rate affects the services of the caregivers. As caregivers enter their roles, they might experience vagueness with their roles. They may also perceive certain biases regarding the condition of the patient. Who is finally chosen as a caregiver depends on a lot of factors like understanding gender roles, geographic proximity, educational status, and other factors as well. The uncertainty of the future results from the unpredictability of the illness of the recipient. The roles of caregivers become more and more diverse from taking care of daily activities to providing care to the recipient directly. The caregiver’s engagement in interpersonal relationship with the recipient improves with higher degree of health literacy. There are certain characteristics that a caregiver must have: Patience is required from the caregiver because one has to understand that there might be a change in plans and to take a little more time in understanding the situation.
Compassion: It is to understand what the recipient is going through.
Dependability: The caregiver must be able to recognize that the person under care if too ill will be dependent on the caregiver.
The caregiver must have the health literacy to be able to communicate with professionals and in understanding all that is required by the patients. There are certain duties of a caregiver: Assessing the medical needs is an important duty of a caregiver. The timing of the medicines are very important for the patient.
Provide companionship: One of the very essential characteristics of a caregiver is to provide companionship to older people who often lack this and which might result in stress and depression due to loneliness.
Care plan: A regular care plan needs to be updated and according to the need of the recipient they must be modified.
Thus, care giving is a job that requires a lot of empathy and a high health literacy rate which helps the caregiver and the care given to have a better experience from both ends.
References
Abdelmoneium, A. O., Rankin, J., & Corman, M. (2017). Roles and responsibilities of family home caregivers for elderly people in Qatar: Experiences and challenges. Int'l J. Soc. Sci. Stud., 5, 1.
Bangerter, L. R., Griffin, J. M., & Dunlay, S. M. (2019). Positive experiences and self-gain among family caregivers of persons with heart failure. The Gerontologist, 59(5), e433-e440.
Barutcu, C. D. (2019). Relationship between Caregiver Health Literacy and Caregiver Burden. Health care assignment Puerto Rico health sciences journal, 38(3).
Chi, N. C., Demiris, G., Lewis, F. M., Walker, A. J., & Langer, S. L. (2016). Behavioral and educational interventions to support family caregivers in end-of-life care: a systematic review. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 33(9), 894-908.
Greenwood, N., Pound, C., Brearley, S. and Smith, R., (2019). A qualitative study of older informal carers’ experiences and perceptions of their caring role. Maturitas, 124, pp.1-7.
Yuen, E. Y., Knight, T., Ricciardelli, L. A., & Burney, S. (2018). Health literacy of caregivers of adult care recipients: A systematic scoping review. Health & social care in the community, 26(2), e191-e206.
Appendix
