Expert Strategies: Nurses Providing Care for their Elderly Parents.

Few studies have examined how medical professionals, i.e. “caregiving experts,” approach caregiving when called upon to provide it for someone in their own families. Expert strategies are sought in problem-solving research, and may be of similar benefit in the field of caregiving research. Thus, we report data from a focus group with middle-aged, registered nurses about their experiences providing care for an elderly, chronically-ill parent. Questions centered on: (i) key caregiving tasks performed by nurses for elderly parents (ii) obstacles to performing caregiving tasks, (iii) strategies used to overcome obstacles. Participants reported serving primarily as health educators and patient advocates for elderly parents. They advocated in an assertive manner, while simultaneously framing the need for patient assertiveness as an unfair burden placed on patients by the rushed managed care climate. This climate was viewed as placing elderly parents at risk, and interfering with good nursing practices. In serving as health educators for parents, participants linked the need to do so to inadequate health education provided by doctors and/or parents’ passivity in seeking health information. Health education provided to elderly parents centered on diabetes care, the seriousness of which participants believed diabetic parents did not grasp. Participants bemoaned passivity around health perceived in members of their parent’s generation, and encouraged parents to adopt a consumerist approach to medical help seeking. Key caregiver strategies for supporting elderly parents’ health included being impervious to doctor resistance when seeking medical help for parents; encouraging parents to act as healthcare consumers; and ensuring that elderly parents understood their own medical histories. Findings are discussed in terms of caregiving and eldercare program implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]