Caregivers’ Experience of Caring for a Family Member with Alzheimer’s Disease: A Content Analysis of Longitudinal Social Media Communication

Pavel Bachmann
Additional contact information
Pavel Bachmann: Department of Management, Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Králové, 50003 Hradec Králové, Czech Republic

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 12, 1-22

Abstract: Background: The population aging together with an increased incidence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) should also be accompanied by a growing interest in healthcare research. Therefore, this study examines the nature of the caregiver’s work, its mental and physical demands, experience and questions, and the relationship between the person with AD, the caregiver, and family members. Methods: As social media has become the place where people share family situations, a Facebook private discussion group of caregivers was chosen as the analytical data source. The study documented the daily-life situations of one-hundred dyads based on 2110 posts published during a six-month or longer period. A content analysis classified communication into 35 categories of basic, instrumental, and extended activities of daily livings (ADLs) and newly designed caregiver’s daily issues (CDIs). Results: The frequently discussed topics were related to exhaustion and feelings of “giving up” by caregivers and interpersonal communication and help from family members. The highest support was found for the topics of aging and dying and family events. Conclusion : The communications of caregivers were diverse and rather associated with co-occupational ADLs and CDIs than basic or instrumental ADLs. The support of the group was mainly provided in coping with fundamental life changes.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; caregiver; online support group; Facebook; social media (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4412/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/12/4412/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:12:p:4412-:d:373736

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().