Empowering Caregivers of Persons with Spinal Cord Injury: A Case Study
Keywords:
Empowerment, Sense of mastery, Caregivers, Persons with spinal cord injuryAbstract
A spinal cord injury (SCI) often causes permanent changes in body functions below the site of the injury. Family caregivers must provide continuity of care when the patient is discharged from the hospital. The burdens of caregiving may include not only physical tasks but also socioemotional demands. At the same time, caregivers must balance caregiving with their own life activities. This case study research aimed to describe the process and outcomes of empowering caregivers of persons with SCI. The purposive sample consisted of five caregivers of persons with SCI with serious disabilities who received medical services at a university hospital in Chiang Mai province. All participants were empowered for 8 weeks to gain a sense of mastery in caregiving roles and in managing their own life situations using the family caregiver empowerment manual developed by the researcher. The researcher took notes on important activities for each step of the empowerment process and collected data using the questionnaires before and after entering the empowerment process. The research instruments were composed of the empowerment protocol for caregivers of persons with SCI, developed by the researcher, and a handout for the caregivers. The instruments for data collection were composed of the sense of mastery in caregiving roles questionnaire and the sense of mastery in life situations of caregivers’ questionnaire. Qualitative data were content analyzed to describe the strategies used in the empowerment process. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.
The results of this study were as follows:
1. There were eleven strategies used in the empowerment process among caregivers of persons with SCI: Creating an appropriate atmosphere and environment; establishing and maintaining a good relationship; respecting individuals; reflective questioning; supporting knowledge and information; offering possible alternative options; counselling; offering examples of best practices; training for new caring tasks; providing positive feedback; and summarizing the key issues.
2. After participating in the empowerment process, all the caregivers had a higher sense of mastery in the role of caregiver of persons with SCI than before entering the process.
3. After participating in the empowerment process, all caregivers of persons with SCI had a higher sense of mastery in managing their own life situations than before entering the process.
The findings of this study can be used in developing the ability of caregivers of persons with SCI who have serious disabilities and the empowerment process should be continued from hospital to home. An experimental design with a larger sample size was recommended for further research to ascertain the effectiveness of family caregiver empowerment on their health outcomes as well as the health outcomes among persons with SCI.
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