Help-seeking by older husband caregivers is complex and gender-specific. Interventions to assist these caregivers must also be gender-specific and complement already existing help-seeking patterns. Focusing on helping caregivers to discover their patterns of relating and help-seeking empowers them to find new ways of interacting and to discover possibilities for action.

This qualitative, descriptive, secondary analysis of spousal caregivers (n = 20) examined similarities and differences in help-seeking patterns to understand the processes underlying decisions regarding resource use. Husbands were comfortable with letting others assume care or getting others to provide care while wives felt responsible for providing care. Both groups underutilized available services. Gender, role expectations, past coping, and family relationships contributed to differences between groups. An important implication is that services should be gender-specific. Understanding spousal help-seeking patterns may enable health professionals to better provide assistance for elder spousal caregivers so that they continue to provide care and reduce burden.

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of patterns of help-seeking by older wife caregivers of husbands with dementia using grounded theory methodology with a theoretical perspective of health as expanding consciousness. Eleven older wife caregivers were interviewed, leading to discovery of a new substantive theory titled "Help-Seeking Choices: Taking One Day at a Time," which was grounded in reality as experienced by the participants. The antecedent category of realizing wrongness, with subthemes of recognizing a problem, accepting direction from others, and recognizing help needs, is described in this article along with implications of findings.