Any men caring for their wives/partners?

KevinB

Registered User
Dec 16, 2005
11
0
Nottingham/Leicester
I hope you don't mind this post.

I am a clinical psychologist completing my training and am conducting some research into men caring for their wives or partners who have dementia. I am particularly interested in how men cope with the caring role and how this makes them feel. There is very little research in this area.

If you are man in this caring role, could I invite you to participate in this research. The questionnaire is online at http://www.psych.le.ac.uk/carers/

The research has been approved by the University of Leicester and NHS ethics committee. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.

Many thanks

Kevin Baker
University of Leicester
Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust.
 

Brucie

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
12,413
0
near London
Hello Kevin

I imagine we all think that there is not sufficient research made into dementia, the effects on sufferers and, of course, the effects on carers, whether male or female.

In that context I've been happy to contribute to your research.

I believe you needed a "Comments" section as many of the questions - which had to be answered - needed a caveat from me that my wife is registered blind because of her dementia, cannot talk, walk, do anything for herself, is losing the ability to crawl, etc. Such qualitative measurements or qualifications might be relevant in the context of the questionnaire.

I know the research is geared towards looking at male responses, but I'd have thought it would have been useful on a comparative basis to measure responses from the many women [the majority of carers on this site] who are available here.

... of course, I'm no expert... ;)
 

KevinB

Registered User
Dec 16, 2005
11
0
Nottingham/Leicester
Thanks

Thanks for your feedback Bruce and thanks for contributing to the research.

The web questionnaire forms part of my research. I am also distributing the questionnaire to men carers in Nottingham, Derby and Leicester in person and discussing it with them. I will also be interviewing men carers locally after I have done a preliminary analysis of the questionnaire data. This is to add depth to my findings in addition to the generalisations that inevitably come from questionnaire/survey research. A questionnaire is a blunt approach to research as you point out - but it also has benefits in comparison to others.

My research focuses on men for a couple of reasons. One is that there is an extreme paucity of research that investigates men in detail - there is much more research that compares men to women. Most of this concludes that men like to problem solve caring difficulties, and women prefer to discuss and share their feelings about caring difficulties. However, this does tend to pander to gender stereotypes and does not explore the different ways different women give care, and also the different ways different men give care. This is the second reason for focusing on men only - some of the questions in the questionnaire are geared to finding out more about how men think about themselves as men (masculinity) and thus gives me information on how different men respond to caring (but not women).

I hope that no one takes this to mean that I do not consider women as carers - that would be stupid of me.

My initial interest in this area was through working with some men caring for their wives. They did this in very different ways - because they were all different men. I didn't find anything in the literature about this. I did find out that men make up about 36% of all carers in the older age groups, and that they spend a lot of time caring and care for long periods of time, and they tend to do this on their own and don't use services very much. These are generalisations - I want to get behind this to understand it more.

I am thinking of puttting some of this information on a web site - if you think it would be a good idea and people would like this? Would anyone else like this?

Thanks and Regards

Kevin Baker
Psychologist in Clinical Training
University of Leicester / Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trustpart part
 

McK

Registered User
Sep 13, 2005
62
0
Pgh. Pa. USA
Survey

Dear Kevin - I too answered your questionaire and the only comment I would like to make is that perhaps in the future you could add a "comments" section to the questionaire. I applaud you for taking this subject on. Many of the questions did not pertain to my wife, since she is going on 10 years since being diagnosed with alzheimers. She was 56 years old at the time and now is bedridden 2 1/2 years and is basically like an infant. Again, many thanks. Sincerely, McK
 

cynron

Registered User
Sep 26, 2005
429
0
east sussex
research

Kevin.


I would be interested to read some of your research. I cant help you as i am a woman carer to my husband.Good luck with this project.

cynron. :)
 

KevinB

Registered User
Dec 16, 2005
11
0
Nottingham/Leicester
Dear McK,
thank you very much for participating in the research. Your comments are useful too. After the seasonal break I will add a comments section - I have to wait until the University is open (they take long holidays!).
Even if the questions may not be relevant to your situation (hopefully this was captured with the 'X' option for not relevant), your responses will be useful to compare to men who may have been coping for relatively shorter periods of time. One question I am trying to address is what is it about some men who are able to cope for longer periods of time caring for their wife/partner (I guess it has something to do with duty, strong relationship, etc.....) - I may not be able to delve into this, but it is a start (and also something no one else has done/is doing).

Many thanks

KevinB
 

KevinB

Registered User
Dec 16, 2005
11
0
Nottingham/Leicester
Dear Cynron
I am writing up part of my research at the moment for publication. I will try to edit it into a web page for anyone/everyone to see. Once this is done (two-three weeks time), I will post the URL on this website.

Best wishes
KevinB
 

Brucie

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
12,413
0
near London
what is it about some men who are able to cope for longer periods of time caring for their wife/partner

It's called "love", Kevin.

Coupled with the other "L" word - "Luck".

You have to have luck to be able to do it, luck in our own health, luck in our stamina, luck in the ways the development of the condition progresses. If you are really lucky, you get some support - from wherever - too.

Guess I'm in the same group as McK, only my wife is in a care home. Luck only carries us so far.

Great if you can put some feeling for the results on the Web.
 

KevinB

Registered User
Dec 16, 2005
11
0
Nottingham/Leicester
Brucie
that's a great way of putting it - love + luck.

I have certainly been astounded by the amount of love some men show for their wives. I have recently been working with a man who recently celebrated over 70 years of marriage, and cares for his wife at home - still in love. It is this type of thing that doesn't come through in questionnaire research, and is why I will be interviewing some men at a later date.

I will be writing some detailed background to the research soon (couple of weeks) and will post the URL here. In early April I aim to post an initial analyis of the data and then to flesh it out with some interpretation very soon after. I will be interested in comments on this, and will welcome feedback at that time.

Best wishes
Kevin
 

Norman

Registered User
Oct 9, 2003
4,348
0
Birmingham Hades
Kevin
Bruce beat me to it, it is love and luck.
It can also help if there is good back up from our Health and Social services and the NHS.
Sadly my experience is that the help is not there,what you get,if any, you have fight for.
I agree with Mk. a comments section would be very useful,we are now in year 7/8 and married for 58 years.
I intend to keep my wife at home as long as I possibly can.
Regards
Norman
 

KevinB

Registered User
Dec 16, 2005
11
0
Nottingham/Leicester
Research on men carers

As promised I have started to put some of the research on men carers and some more information about the ideas behind my study on the web. The web page is:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/kevin.baker1/

I am intending to add to this over the next few weeks, and if anyone wants to contribute please let me know (either here or klb34@le.ac.uk). I am a little slower than usual as I have broken my shoulder.

Best wishes

Kevin Baker
 

Brucie

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
12,413
0
near London
Hi Kevin
thanks for this posting. Sorry about your shoulder!

One comment about the web page. You say
Dementia Care
Caring for a family member with Alzheimer’s disease can involve........
While Alzheimer's is the most well known form of dementia, arguably, I think it would be a good thing not to constrain the para in question to AD. Many people have another dementia, either alongside AD, or on its own.

I believe that it is never too soon to surface the variety of dementias that may afflict people, and they all, of course, tend to affect carers, male and female, in pretty much similar ways.