Untitled

Abstract

Stages of help seeking during illness have been identified as follows: disease experience, symptom attribution, decision to seek care, and contact with care providers. These stages have not been evaluated amongst family caregivers of elders affected with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders (ADRD). Since minority families typically care for ADRD elders at home, it seems important to understand the help seeking of minority family caregivers in particular, and the role of religious/ethnic factors. Thematic analyses were conducted on in-depth interviews from 10 caregivers from 4 groups (total n = 40): African-American, Chinese-American, Puerto Rican, and Irish-American. Aside from the disease experience stage, where religious/ethnic themes were negligible, between-group differences existed in these themes at other stages. For example, themes of extended family support emerged around decision making, with much between-group variation. At the contact with providers stage themes of contacting religious or ethnic service organizations were present, again with between-group variation. Chinese-American and Puerto Rican narratives contained themes of language barriers to care, and a lack of culturally-competent services. Both Irish-American and African-American narratives showed themes of alienation from religious groups on the one hand, and using prayer to cope on the other. Narratives from all groups contained themes of religious and/or ethnic imperatives for providing care. Overall, findings reveal that religious/ethnic factors may both aid and impede the help seeking of caregivers.

Influences on the access to and use of formal community care by people with dementia and their informal caregivers: a scoping review

“…We analysed the main topics investigated by the included studies. Some studies investigated two main topics [52, 64, 74, 79, 113], and this was considered in our overview of the investigated influences (Table 4).…”

Barriers and facilitators in accessing dementia care by ethnic minority groups: a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies

“…No indication of type or severity African American sub-sample from Levkoff et al 1999 (below) Interviews Dates not reported Narrative review 2 Hicks & Lam, 1999 [ 22 ] USA (Urban) Caregivers (7) Caregivers of elders with diagnosis of dementia. No indication of type or severity Chinese American sub-sample from Levkoff et al 1999 (below) Interviews Dates not reported Narrative review 3 Levkoff et al, 1999 [ 23 ] USA (Urban) Caregivers (40) Caregivers of elders with diagnosis of dementia. No indication of type or severity African American, Chinese American, Puerto Rican,Irish American Interviews Dates not reported Thematic analysis 4 Adamson, 2001 [ 24 ] UK (Urban) Caregivers (30) Caregivers of persons with symptoms of dementia.…”

Health of Elderly Mexican American Adults and Family Caregiver Distress

“…Cognitive impairment or needing help with ADLs may be characterized as part of normative aging processes among the Mexican Americans (Levkoff, Levy, &Weitzman, 1999) and there may not be a fatalist cultural orientation toward dementia among Mexican American caregivers. Hinton, Chambers, and Velásquez (2009) found that a large portion of their Latino caregiver sample attributed problematic behaviors to other causes than Alzheimer's disease or dementia.…”