Spirituality and coping of informal carers of clients with dementia living in the community

Abstract

The aim of the study was to explore spirituality and coping of informal carers of clients with dementia living in the community. The objectives of the study were to determine a definition of spirituality and what helps or hinders informal carers coping while caring for a person suffering from dementia. In the small scale descriptive study a convenient sample of 10 informal carers were recruited to take part in the focus group which was carried out in the Maltese language to facilitate discussion. The focus group consisted of demographic data followed by open-ended questions taken from the WHO SRPB QOL questionnaire. The interview was audio taped and lasted approximately 90 minutes which was then transcribed verbatim and translated in English. The mean age of the participants was between 60 and 70 and they were all females. The transcribed interview was analysed using thematic analysis and six themes emerged which were further divided into categories. The six themes reinforced previous research that showed that religion and spirituality is an important dimension in human experience. The main findings of the study were the importance of problem solving and social support. Furthermore, spiritual beliefs like praying and accepting the truth were identified as strong coping mechanisms in difficult life situations. Most of the participants used the term spirituality interchangeably with religiosity while other participants (n - 4) viewed spirituality as being love, inner strength and reliance on conscience. This small qualitative scale study offered an in depth information about spirituality and coping for the informal carers of clients suffering from dementia. However a larger scale study is recommended using a random sample technique to reach a better representation of the whole population which includes different age groups and male participants. An increase in awareness is needed for professional health care workers so that they can provide or enhance spiritual coping mechanisms of the informal carers taking care of their family members suffering from dementia.