Tarih:
Konum: A216
Speaker: Yağmur AR
The negative impacts of Alzheimer’s disease caregiving on informal caregivers have been largely investigated from a stress-coping paradigm. However, recent studies pointed out that examining “ambiguous losses” associated with the unique pathology of the disease is essential to understand the multidimensional nature of Alzheimer’s caregiving. Besides, cross-cultural studies have criticized the stress-coping paradigm as the negative and positive caregiving experiences might exist side by side in a complimentary manner in some cultures. In this seminar, the findings of the two complimentary studies aiming to understand the common and unique experiences of adult children caregivers in Turkey will be presented. In the first study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 adult children caregivers, and the data was analyzed with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Findings indicated that Turkish caregivers perceived the silver linings of the situation although burden was also evident in their accounts. They particularly benefited from some cultural coping strategies while caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s disease. Besides, Turkish caregivers were reluctant to place their affected parents into nursing homes due to “filial piety” and “neighborhood pressure”. In this respect, the second study aimed to test a model based on the current literature and the findings of the qualitative study. Particularly, outcome variables which were depression, anxiety, anticipatory grief and growth were examined with respect to various coping strategies and perceived social support levels. In this seminar, the findings obtained from both studies will be discussed in relation to current literature. Particularly, the complimentary and differential nature of the findings will be evaluated with respect to norms and values of the Turkish culture. The seminar will be finalized with clinical and policy implications of the aforementioned studies.