Nature and structure of sources of suffering in family caregivers of hospitalized elderly patients

While elderly people enter the hospital in biological crisis, family caregivers enter the hospital in psychological crisis. But professional caregivers haven’t adequate knowledge of family caregiver's experiences. Therefore they forget that family caregivers are in suffering equally. Since suffering is a significant concept in nursing science and knowing and comprehending sources of suffering in family caregivers by professional caregivers is very important, this study is done to describe the nature and structure of sources of suffering in family caregivers of hospitalized elderly patients. This is a qualitative study with phenomenological method. Population of the research is all elderly patient's families that were hospitalized in one of the hospitals of Isfahan University of medical sciences. Sampling method was purposive and continued until data saturation. The numbers of participants are 12. Data were gathered through in-dept interview and data analysis done by “Parse” method that was not used in Iran. The finding of this research is summarized in these core concepts: Patients and therapeutic interventions as source of suffering, hospital as source of suffering, disturbance in family and social life as source of suffering, self neglect as source of suffering. These concepts will be discussed in the full article. Participant's experiences reflect the need for planning interventions such as developing supportive groups, providing facility and instruments and continuous support for family caregivers during hospital stay. Also results show that educational programs are necessary for effective adaptation in family caregivers.