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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.

The paper presents the results of the research on the needs of the older people for services from the social welfare system, which was conducted at social welfare centres. 3001 people from all Croatian regions or counties participated in the research. The research was conducted with the aim of determining the needs for services from the social welfare system, in order to improve the quality of life of the older people. The paper presents the socio-demographic characteristics of the surveyed older people, their marital status, number of household members, support provided by their children, sources of income, property and health status, functional status, rights exercised from the social welfare system and the need for missing services. Respondents feel that they need home help services the most, but there is also a significant interest in institutional accommodation services. There are differences in the needs for care services, depending on how big is the respondent’s place of living. The collected data represent the empirical basis for the social welfare system on the older people, aiming to serve as help in adoption of strategic documents that need to protect this vulnerable population. Key words: the older people, social welfare, needs, services

Cilj je rada bio ispitati relativni doprinos dispozicijskih (autoritarnosti i orijentacije na socijalnu dominaciju), identitetskih (identifikacije s vlastitom nacijom, nacionalizma i kozmopolitizma) i situacijskih čimbenika (percepcije međugrupne prijetnje) u predviđanju otvorenih i prikrivenih etničkih predrasuda, uz ispitivanje multigrupnog moderirajućeg učinka nacionalnog identiteta. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 582 studenata Sveučilišta u Zagrebu. Utvrđeno je da se visoko i nisko identificirani pojedinci razlikuju na svim mjerama, osim u rezultatima orijentacije na socijalnu dominaciju. Analizom traga kompozitnih rezultata na latentnim varijablama utvrđen je značajan doprinos percipirane međugrupne prijetnje te dispozicijskih čimbenika u objašnjenju predrasuda prema pripadnicima nacionalnih manjina, ali ne i značajan doprinos identitetskih obilježja. U radu se raspravlja o implikacijama rezultata, posebno o ograničenoj mogućnosti predviđanja prikrivenih predrasuda na temelju sklopa prediktora uobičajenih u predviđanju otvorenih predrasuda. Ključne riječi: otvorene i prikrivene predrasude prema nacionalnim manjinama, nacionalna vezanost, nacionalni identitet, nacionalizam, kozmopolitizam