Caregivers often experience the long-term stress which is rather difficult to overcome because of the constant psychological and physical pressure and necessities to take care for clients regularly. That is why the caregiver burnout among the persons who take care for the other people is a usual phenomenon.
The symptoms of the caregiver burnout are different, but all of them are associated with the person’s stress and impossibility to assess and control the situation. The physical and emotional exhaustion can lead to the situation when the caregiver cannot help the client because of symptoms of the burnout.
The stress and depression along with the negative moods can be prevented or treated with references to the definite interventions which help caregivers feel better and change their negative attitudes with positive ones.
Thus, there is a range of interventions which can be proposed to help caregivers, and they usually depend on different kinds of assistance such as the financial, emotional, and physical help and support.
The effective interventions are connected with the social and financial support and physical help. Caregivers should not reject any kind of such help in order to prevent the stress and anxiety and to use any information about the available services.
The other rationales can be explained basing on the fact that there are many organizations which provide the necessary assistance in relation to the relevant social and financial programs, utilizing the local resources (Sherman et al., 2006).
It is important to increase these programs’ role in the process in order to make the life of the client and caregiver easier. The separation of the tasks and the usage of many available programs and services can help the caregiver manage the time and energy effectively.
The social support is necessary for caregivers and relatives that is why it is important to implement the support group programs. Caregivers and relatives should have an opportunity to discuss their concerns with the people who are in the similar situation and ask questions to feel the support (Maurer & Smith, 2009).
It is necessary to insist on the cooperation of the caregivers and relatives’ activities.
The caregivers’ assistance cannot be discussed as effective when they know little about the specific disease.
Thus, it is necessary to provide caregivers with the opportunities to expand their knowledge within the certain field in order to decrease the level of fear to act wrongly or do harm (Ampalam, Gunturu, & Padma, 2012). Caregivers should also know the perspectives of the treatment and assess the situation appropriately.
Sometimes, the social support in groups is not enough for caregivers, and they need the professional psychological help.
Thus, caregivers should have the opportunity to receive the psychological consultation and communicate with the counselor regularly to cope with the stress, fear, anxiety, loss of interest, loss of appetite, emotional and physical exhaustion (Ampalam, Gunturu, & Padma, 2012).
These symptoms of the caregiver burnout are too severe to be treated independently.
However, such intervention as the regular physical and outdoor activities is easy to follow and implement by the caregiver even with references to the client. If it is possible, clients and caregivers should spend much time outdoors.
Walking and physical activities help relieve stress and become more active (Aloulou et al., 2013). Furthermore, physical and outdoor exercises are important to cope with the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
The caregiver burnout can be treated and prevented only with references to the effective interventions used. The accents should be made on the caregiver’s physical, emotional, and psychological state.
References
Aloulou, J., Damak, R., Masmoudi, F., Sidhom, O., & Amami, O. (2013). Burn out in health care providers: A Tunisian study about 142 nurses. La Tunisie Medicale, 91(1), 44-49.
Ampalam, P., Gunturu, S., & Padma, V. (2012). A comparative study of caregiver burden in psychiatric illness and chronic medical illness. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 54(3), 239-243.
Maurer, F. A., & Smith, C. M. (2009). Community/public health nursing practice: Health for families and populations. St. Louis, Missouri: Saunders Elsevier.
Sherman, A. C., Edwards, D., Simonton, S., & Mehta, P. (2006). Caregiver stress and burnout in an oncology unit. Palliative & Supportive Care, 4(1), 65-80.