NDLI: Anticipatory grief and experience of providing at-home palliative care among informal caregivers of spouses in Croatia: a qualitative study

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Bilić, Jelena Skokandić, Lea Puljak, Livia
Abstract	Background In palliative care, caring for spouses suffering from incurable diseases can provoke a range of reactions in informal caregivers that are part of the grieving process, as well as other reactions and ways of coping with a current role, which is often challenging. Anticipatory grief occurs before death and is often present in people who face the eventual loss of a loved one or their own death. This study aimed to gain insight into the anticipatory grief of informal caregivers who are providing at-home palliative care for their ill spouse. Our research questions focus on investigating the meanings caregivers ascribe to the experience of providing palliative care and the impending loss of a spouse. Methods A qualitative study was conducted in Zagreb, Croatia, from April to June of 2021. Eight participants took part in the study. Participants in the study were informal caregivers of a spouse suffering from an incurable, terminal disease that receives at-home palliative care. Data were collected through semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Transcripts were analyzed by interpretive phenomenological analysis. Results The analysis provided several meanings that represent caregivers’ experiences and coping strategies. The caregivers bravely face the challenges of “living with an illness” by maintaining optimism, strong cohesion with their partner and a sense of joint destiny. They tend to repress their own personal needs and feelings while carrying the burden of care. Caregivers tend to stay positive and focus on living in the present by taking an active role in providing care for the ill spouse and family. Conclusions Anticipatory grief presents emotional, cognitive, and spiritual challenges to spouse caregivers in palliative care. The contribution of this study was to gain insight into the meaning that caregivers ascribe to the experience and challenges they face while providing everyday care for their ill spouse. Confirming prior results, the experiences are generally similar to all caregivers, pointing to the need for substantial improvement in the quality of the support and help from the healthcare workers and other experts who provide palliative care and support for the patients’ family members.
Related Links	https://bmcpalliatcare.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12904-022-01093-1.pdf
Ending Page	16
Page Count	16
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
DOI	10.1186/s12904-022-01093-1
Journal	BMC Palliative Care
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	21
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2022-11-18
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Pain Medicine Quality of Life Research Palliative Medicine Palliative care Anticipatory grief Informal caregivers Qualitative study
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Medicine
Journal Impact Factor	2.5/2023
5-Year Journal Impact Factor	3.2/2023

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
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4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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