Evaluation of the home help service and its impact on the informal caregiver's burden of dependent elders
Aim This study looks at the objective and subjective characteristics of home respite service provision and its impact on the informal care burden of dependent elders. Method A sample of 296 dependent people and their informal caregivers was randomly selected among users and non-users of the Home Help Service (HHS) in an autonomous Spanish region (Comunidad Valenciana). An experimental design was used and a field study was carrying out that collected information on sociodemographic variables of the dependent person and his/her caregiver, HHS characteristics and the assessment of the services delivered by this resource as well as the informal caregivers'burden. Results The results show that t…
Variables related to the informal caregivers' burden of dependent senior citizens in Spain
The study aims at analyzing the psychosocial variables associated with the informal caregivers" burden of dependent older people. A sample of 296 dependent people and their informal caregivers (n= 153) was randomly selected among users and non-users of the Spanish public In-Home Help Service (HHS) in an autonomous Spanish region (Comunidad Valenciana). Diverse variables in reference to the care context and the caregiver as well as the care recipient show major associations with the burden: those associated to disease and the social situation of the dependent person, the greater frequency and intensity of care, and the low frequency in which the caregiver receives help from others. The obtai…
Observations on the Progress of Welfare-State Construction in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic
Three specialists in social services present an assessment of Hungary's performance during the economic transition from the perspective of social policy and the general welfare of the population. Using figures drawn from a variety of European sources, they offer a review of social expenditure, labor market tendencies, and the social security, health and education systems, comparing throughout with data from the Czech Republic, Poland and the European Union.
The care of the informal caregiver's burden by the Spanish public system of social welfare: a review.
Abstract This work analyzes the public social services system developed in Spain to attend dependent persons and their informal caregivers, examining in a more detailed way the current capacity of the Spanish public In-Home Help Service (HHS) to meet the demands of dependent elderly persons and its impact on their informal caregiver's burden. We begin with a brief introduction of the services by the Spanish public social services system developed to attend dependency; next, the evolution of the Spanish public HHS is described in a thorough way to identify the pros and cons of this service regarding the informal caregivers’ burden of dependent elders. Finally, recommendations are proposed to…
The informal caregiver's burden of dependent people: Theory and empirical review.
This paper reviews the main theories and results of the existing research to date about the concept of the informal caregiver's burden. The explanation of the burden concept, the theoretical approaches which attempt to explain it, the variables which have emerged in the investigation, the predictors of its appearance, as well as the intervention programs developed to relieve burden, allow us to approach the appropriate solutions to deal with the current social and political reality of this problem. In this sense, the psycho-educational intervention programs framed within the respite services jointly with the knowledge of the determining variables of the burden can comprise the first optimal…
Design of an ICT Tool for Decision Making in Social and Health Policies
The governance requires technical support regarding the complexity in deciding health policies to assist people who require long-term care. Long-term care policies require the use of ICT simulation tools that can provide policy makers with the option of going into a decision theatre and virtually knowing the consequences of different policies prior to finally determining the real policy to be adopted. In this sense, there is an absence of simulation tools for decision making about long-term care policies. In this chapter, the authors propose the foundations and guidelines of SSIMSOWELL, a new scalable, multiagent simulation tool that increases the prediction capacity of governance in the lo…
A review of programs to alleviate the burden of informal caregivers of dependent persons.
The review of interventions currently available to alleviate the burden of informal caregivers of dependent persons has both social and political relevance considering the increasing number of elderly dependent persons. Respite services and programs for psycho-social intervention are the main methods of dealing with this burden. Study of the main research carried out to date on such interventions enables us to organize more efficient services, especially considering the enactment of the Law on Dependence in Spain in January 2007 and the need for other European and international governments to establish systems to meet the needs of the growing dependent population.