The Emotional Exhaustion Of The Profession Caregiver

Stress and Burnout emphasizes emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion in a person. It takes place when one if feeling overwhelmed, or emotionally. Emotional exhaustion will have one feeling used up or drained. It gives an individual the feeling that they cannot accomplish their goal. Depersonalization is feeling weak and feeling guilty of their requests or decisions. A reduced sense of personal accomplishment may have one feel like they are a failure and cannot do things right. The individual may feel depressed, guilty and form low self esteem. Those who experience this condition are prone to health risks such as heart disease and depression. When an individual is suffering from burnout, they are likely to leave their profession. In work field, burnout is feeling no control, demanding job expectations, doing unchallenging work. In a lifestyle filed, it is caused by working too much, taking on too much responsibility, and not enough sleep. Burnout also leads to detachment and depression because of the overwhelming stress that carries with the overwhelming emotions.

This paper discusses the caregiver perspectives in the health of their relatives, and the stress that may come with it, especially in the sense of burnout. Burnout is associated with poor patient outcomes. In the book, it states that a study conducted patients of high burnout physicians recovered more slowly than the patients of physicians who weren’t suffering from burnout (CITE). When a physician is emotionally and physically exhausted, it affects their attentiveness with their patients as well as the relationship. Furthermore, it is also similar when the caregiver is with the patient who is their family member, they are also prone to be affecting the attentiveness.

Family caregiving is growing in the healthcare field. It is both a risk and is helpful to both the physicians and patients for one reason being that it can affect the relationship. Having a sibling as a caregiver can be a source of protection. The intensity of being a caregiver can be a bit dangerous causing harm to ones mental health.

In the article “Coping as a caregiver for an Elderly family member” it emphasizes that approximately 30% of our U.S. population in whom acts as the caregivers for elderly family members. Caregivers spend 13 days per month shopping, preparing food, housekeeping, doing laundry, providing transportation, and administrating medication. They spend 6 days per month are spent on feeding, dressing, grooming, walking, bathing, and providing assistance (Mendes, 2011). Being a caregiver for your family relatives can be stressful and exhausting. It causes a person to add more responsibility and tasks to their daily lives, because they are caring for more additions. It can someway add on to being a burden onto the individual and causing them to be more at risk of depression.

This article was based on the results of coping mechanisms fro caregivers. The techniques used were humor, framing, and acceptance, which each accounted fro their own percentages. Humor was the top result, in which laughter was the main subcategory in result. Majority of caregivers are taking care of their parents and in-laws. Having a sense of humor in these scenarios offers a sign of relief and positive light, to take away from the difficulty.

Sibling caregiving can be both pros and cons as it can be problematic to the relationship causing strains, yet it can be a protective factor. The article “Dyadic effects of gratitude on burden, conflict, and contribution in the family caregiver and sibling relationship” speaks on caregiving as a family and caregiving as a burden. A study was done through a survey to conduct the relationship between adults siblings and the conflicts, burdens, and participation. The study required a sailing pair which one primary caregiver for an aging parent. In measuring the distribution of care, a health park of siblings were to answer the question based on the weekly hours one of them contributed to the care of their parent(s). They were also asked to select the primary care caregiver out of the two or how many there were. The individuals results ranged between 0 – 168 hours every week. Those of the siblings who had appointed themselves as the primary caregiver reported on average 26.27 hours every week. The primary caregiver reported that their sibling spent about 5 hours every week caring, while the sibling reported the primary caregiver at an estimated 5.13 hours every week .

In a family, siblings and caregivers affect one another , especially their relationship and ability to come together which can affect the parent they are caring for. In the sense of caregiver burden , it refers to a caregivers emotional/physical health, social interactions and financial well being that’s changes with a loved one. A big reason for caregiver burden is due to the lack of family support. When it comes down to difficult decisions and hearing of a diagnosis for example, it can involve a negative form of emotions like anger and guilt. The more hours in a day spent caring for a family member, the more of a chance of burden and poor mental health. When a caregiver is the responsible party, they are taken away from what they are used too, such as their social life and daily activities that they were accustomed too before becoming the responsible party. Some caregivers may feel as though they do not have as much social support they need to help them cope with what is going on.

Health literacy is an individuals ability to understand and apply health information. A person must be able to read, write, and understand the language being given. In the article “