A Group Intervention Study On Spouse Carers Of The Disabled Elderly In Cities

Disabled elderly means an elderly person aged 60 or above whose basic physiological functions,such as eating,bathing,dressing,toilet and indoor walking,are degraded due to illness,and that his daily activities must be assisted or entirely assisted by others.In disabled elderly families with spouses,the care tasks are mainly undertaken by the disabled elderly spouses.Spouse caregivers may also encounter many problems,such as their own physical and psychological problems in the long-term care,which not only profoundly affect the quality of life of the carers and the cared for themselves,but also seriously erodes their family life,community development and the construction of the whole aging society.In this study,the data were collected by questionnaire and interview.And six spouse caregivers were selected by Zarit Nursing burden scale.Through the evaluation of the scale and the interview,we found that the spouse caretakers of the urban disabled elderly have the following problems:(1)They had greater stress and a sense of burden of care.(2)The carers had obvious anxiety and the mental state was poor.(3)The interpersonal and social interaction of the spouse caregivers decreased significantly,and the spouse caregivers felt lonely and ununderstood.Based on the above problems,social workers carried out group intervention to the spouse caretaker.By constructing the field of the group,the members can communicate fully,interact with each other and solve the problem in the field of the group.In order to achieve the satisfaction of members' interpersonal needs,obtain positive and supportive power,and enhance the sense of mutual dependence.Through six series of group interventions,the purpose of helping the study subjects to reduce the pressure and the burden of nursing care and to establish their own support network was achieved.At the end of the group,the members of the group were evaluated again.The results showed that :(1)After group intervention,the scores of Zarit nursing burden scale decreased significantly,and their nursing burden and pressure decreased significantly.(2)The members' mental status improved significantly after their participation in the group.(3)The members of the group have achieved good interaction in the group and successfully established their own self-support networkwith the help of the platform of the group.By comparing the performance and evaluation results before and after the intervention,this study concluded that the group intervention was more effective in solving the problem of spouse caregivers of the urban disabled elderly.