Kontakt 2021, 23(3):200-206 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2021.039

Typology of informal carers providing care to family members after cerebrovascular accidentSocial Sciences in Health - Original article

Miroslav Paulíček¹, Lenka Krhutová^{1, *}, Iva Kuzníková¹, Kamila Vondroušová¹, Iva Tichá¹, Hana Lukšová¹, Petra Anna-Marie Blahová¹, Veronika Valoušková¹, Marcela Dabrowská², Jarmila Kristiníková², Petr Šaloun³

¹ University of Ostrava, Faculty of Social Studies, Department of Health and Social Studies, Ostrava, Czech Republic

² University of Ostrava, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Rehabilitation, Ostrava, Czech Republic

³ VSB - Technical University of Ostrava, Faculty of Electrical, Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Computer Science, Ostrava, Czech Republic

Introduction: The study is underpinned by the research of people providing care to relatives after a cerebrovascular accident outside the sphere of public institutions - so called informal carers. The aim was to create a typology of these carers, reflecting their way of constructing identity, their attitude to their own emotions, their reflections on and experience with caring, their forms of communication, and how they work with information.

Methods: The research was led by a qualitative approach with the use of the principles of biographical research. It is based on thirty semi-structured interviews. Areas were identified within these interviews in which the carers reflected on themselves. Through these areas, the carers differ in the ways in which they experience their roles of carers. The research was complemented with a questionnaire survey in order to acquire demographic and other data from the same sample.

Results: The result of the study is a typology which contains five pure types of informal carers who provide care to family members after a Cerebrovascular Accident (CVA): (1) rational, (2) self-construing, (3) depressive, (4) traditional and (5) optimistic.

Discussion: The results of the study are discussed in the context of caregiving in general, and in comparison with research focusing on the ways in which carers cope with decreased autonomy, emotions, gender, or their approach to obtaining information.

Conclusions: Within the above types, carers differed in the variety of ways in which they controlled their emotions, in the different relationships to self, or in their reflections on the future. Which category an individual carer fell into depended on the volume of care they provided, how long they had been providing it, the possibilities to obtain support or assistance, and the personality of the carer. This typology may be useful from the analytical perspective, as well as from the perspective of potential interventions aimed at the dissemination of information and the sharing of the carers' experience.

Keywords: Cerebrovascular accident; Informal carer; Typology

Grants and funding:

This research was supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic within the framework of the project “Research and development of support networks and information systems for informal carers for persons after stroke” – implemented by the University of Ostrava and VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, project ID: TACR/TL02000050, project duration: 2019–2021. We would also like to express our gratitude to the application guarantors of the project – The Association for Rehabilitation of People after Cerebrovascular Accidents and the Moravian- Silesian Region.

Conflicts of interest:

The authors have no conflict of interests to declare.

Received: January 31, 2021; Revised: May 24, 2021; Accepted: August 3, 2021; Prepublished online: August 23, 2021; Published: September 3, 2021  Show citation