The Perception of Stress by Indian Caregivers: A Thematic Analysis

Abstract

Caregiving may mean direct care of all types also including work done by paid workers such as nurses, social workers, and counsellors. But in this paper the focus is not on professional caregivers, but on family caregivers. Family caregivers are emotionally involved in the process of caregiving, although they may undertake caregiving as a responsibility with compassion still, they may perceive a threat to their physical and psychological being. Thus, caregiving being associated with emotional, financial and social turmoil forms a ground for research in itself. Indian caregivers, accept their caregiving roles, as reciprocity of duty and love, but still, they tend to perceive the engrainedstress in caregiving tasks. The present study, thus, tends to identify such perceived caregiving stress in caregivers of patients suffering from physical chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart diseases.The sample of the study consisted of 120 caregivers of chronically ill patients; 110 female and 10 males, drawn from some private hospitals in the city of Gorakhpur and Ayodhya.The qualitative data was obtained in the form of narratives using semi-structured open interview methods and observations, thereafter, thematic analysis of the interview transcripts using manual coding techniques was done