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Stress connected with care of seniors.
KOREJSOVÁ, Kateřina
The theme of this bachelor's thesis is the care of seniors and any stress accompanying nursing duties. The introductory chapter of the theoretical portion is concerned with the theme of age and aging. The chapter after is devoted to the theme of care and nursing. It provides a glimpse into the history of these fields, defines their meaning and aims, describes the nature of a carer/nurse and introduces a holistic approach to care/nursing. The following chapters will address stress and burnout syndrome, their manifestations, causes, and preventative measures as well some treatments. An important part of the thesis is the chapter that details the possibilities for care of seniors. It describes the various forms of health care as well as social care. One of the sub-chapters of this section presents an overview of the care facilities for seniors that exist within the Czech Republic. The last chapter of the theoretical part connects the theme of care of seniors with the theme of stress. It describes the most common causes of stress which surround the care of seniors. In the research portion of this thesis goals are described and methods and results of research are outlined. Its aim was to discover how the individuals who care for seniors feel: stress levels, the causes of stress, and how they deal with stress. A quantitative questionnaire method was used, and two types of questionnaire were created as a result one for the individuals who care for seniors (members of their family) in the normal surroundings of their home, and a second for the care workers who look after seniors in professional facilities. In the research it was discovered that the carers "laymen" who care for their family members at home are more often exhausted, but they do not think they succumb to burnout syndrome. This may be because care is not such a great drain on them that they could not or would not continue to give it. A positive of this is the discovery that these people often chose to care for their senior relatives purely by choice, and not due to pressure from their surroundings. Stress-causing factors are, according to the survey a higher level of dependency of the senior, long-term care (more than 10 years), no adjustment of the household to accommodate for the health status of the senior and the fact that the carer cares for them by themselves unless someone helps them (family, friends, professional facilities). The second questionnaire came to a somewhat unsettling discovery. Not only that twenty-six of thirty respondents feel exhausted at the end of the day, but half revealed that they felt they had succumbed to burnout syndrome (they feel long-term exhaustion and fatigue, an aversion to work etc.). However, almost all respondents agree that the seniors they care for are content. We suggest that the reason for this "burnout" is that the job itself is very demanding, and also the possibility that their work is not fairly rewarded financially. On the other hand, we can also gather that although the carers in professional facilities feel exhausted and "burnt out", they like their jobs.
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