Suchergebnisse

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of female spouses' lived experiences of changes in everyday life while living with a husband with dementia.


Design/methodology/approach
Nine individual interviews of female spouses were conducted in 2017. A phenomenological narrative approach was applied during data collection, and the analysis was inspired by Amedeo Giorgi's analytic steps.


Findings
Female spouses experienced changes in their marital relationships, and found ways of managing these changes, although they realized life was marked by loneliness and distress. The identified themes reveal how female spouses experienced changes in everyday life as the disease progressed. Everyday routines gradually changed and they actively sought ways to uphold everyday life and a marital relationship.


Research limitations/implications
Research should focus on developing supportive interventions, where the people with the lived experiences in relation to dementia are involved in the research process, to better target the needs for support, when developing interventions.


Practical implications
Insight into everyday life can help health-care service providers to better the support to female spouses and contribute with more individualized support, which may contribute to the quality of care.


Originality/value
In this study, the authors disclose the invisible and silent work that takes place in an everyday life, when living with a husband with dementia during the time span of caregiving. Spouses' experiences are important to include, when developing intervention to support spouses to better tailor the interventions.

Background: The Illness Management and Recovery (IMR) program is designed to support people diagnosed with severe mental illness in developing tailored illness-management skills and to pursue personal goals. Although IMR is a goal-oriented program, little is know about the participants' experience of goal-setting as part of IMR. Aim: To describe participants' lived experience of personal goal-setting as part of the Illness Management and Recovery program (IMR). Method: A descriptive, phenomenological research design was employed with individual interviews. Results: IMR helped the participants break down their personal goals into manageable short-term goals. The main themes were as follows: 'We were guided to set clearer and specific goals in IMR', 'We were encouraged to pursue our personal goals in IMR' and 'We were encouraged and supported to resume work on our goals when we stopped making progress'. The findings emphasise goal-setting in IMR as a means to instilling hope for the future and work on goals. Conclusions: The participants learned to identify, articulate and initiate work towards short- and long-term goals when guided by the instructor and supported by peers in the IMR group. Goal-setting is a useful method for breaking down personal recovery goals into a practical short-term goals and motivating participants to pursue them. The findings indicate goal-setting is an important part of the IMR-program, but suggest that flexibility in goal-setting is needed, especially in the time required to achieve personal goals.