Profamille est un programme psychoéducatif destiné aux aidants naturels des patients souffrant de schizophrénie. Il est standardisé, évalué et l’un des plus utilisés dans la francophonie. Il s’appuie sur des recherches sur les interactions entre le milieu familial et le cours de la maladie. L’une de ses particularités est de considérer l’action ciblée sur l’humeur des aidants comme l’un des paramètres essentiels de ses résultats positifs. En effet, l’amélioration de l’humeur doit permettre l’amélioration du coping des aidants, du climat émotionnel au sein de la famille et de l’acquisition des nouvelles connaissances délivrées par le programme. À notre connaissance, une seule étude antérieure sur l’évolution de l’humeur des participants à Profamille a été publiée, et elle concernait une version ancienne du programme. L’objectif de notre étude a donc été d’évaluer l’impact de Profamille sur l’humeur de 57 aidants inclus lors de 4 sessions ayant eu lieu au CHU de Caen, entre 2010 et 2014, grâce à un auto-questionnaire rempli en début et fin de programme (Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale [CES-D]). Nous avons distingué pour la comparaison statistique des scores d’évaluation (test de Wilcoxon bilatéral sur les données appariées) 3 groupes :

• – les sujets à risque de syndrome dépressif (score initial à la CES-D > 16, n = 23) ;

• – les sujets très probablement dépressifs (score initial à la CES-D > 22, n = 18) ;

• – les sujets non déprimés (score initial à la CES-D ≤ 16, n = 31).

Les résultats ont montré que l’humeur s’améliorait tant dans le groupe à risque de syndrome dépressif (p < 0,001) que dans le groupe très probablement dépressif (p < 0,001). La comparaison des scores de l’humeur dans le groupe des sujets non déprimés n’était pas statistiquement significative. Ces résultats confirment l’impact positif de Profamille sur l’humeur des participants et son intérêt fondamental dans le travail avec les familles de nos patients souffrant de schizophrénie.

Falls are a common cause of morbidity and mortality in older adults. While research has explored the relationship between older care recipient falls and caregiver health, there has been little investigation of the relationship between caregiving tasks and falls in older caregivers. This study assessed associations between falls and caregiving frequency and type of caregiving tasks among informal older caregivers. Data from the Canadian Community Health Survey on Healthy Aging (Public Use Microdata File 2008–2009) (n = 2,934) were examined, using descriptive and logistic regression analyses. Higher frequency of caregiving was positively associated with falls, although those who performed household chores were less likely to report falling in the past year. Results suggest there may be an association between factors related to caregiving and falls in older caregivers. More research using longitudinal and experimental data is needed to better understand the relationship between caregiving tasks and falls in older caregivers.

The need for home care is increasing in Canada, yet little is known about the home care experience of clients and their families. Uncovering the meaning of the home care experience is an important step towards developing understanding and public awareness. We explored the experiences of home care using arts-based methods and individual interviews with 11 participants (one client and 10 family caregivers). Participants discussed the numerous ways formal home care and family caregiving affected their lives, how they coped with these effects, their experiences in hospitals or assisted living facilities, and aspects of the home care experience they liked or disliked. Participants agreed that home care facilitated a better quality of life for families and clients, although they acknowledged some challenges with it. The artistic outputs produced by participants facilitated interview dialogue and fostered understanding of key themes within the research team.

This grounded-theory study explored family members’ experiences supporting a relative’s move into a long-term care (LTC) home. Each stage in the transition process, and the role of starting point in shaping the experience, were examined. Twenty family members who moved a relative into an LTC home were interviewed within six weeks of the move. The findings revealed that the starting point had a profound effect on family members’ experiences accepting the need for, and timing of, their relative’s move into LTC (pre-move), and on believing that the selected LTC home was a positive environment for their relative (post-move). LTC home policies and processes were also important. However, when pre-move acceptance was compromised by circumstances attributed to the starting point, these policies and processes were not as effective in fostering post-move acceptance. Conditions that support positive transitions before, during, and after the move from each starting point are discussed.

We studied the relationship between caregivers' personal and social resources and facilitation of adherence by elderly care recipients to a prescribed health regimen. Adherence facilitation was measured among 240 caregivers on a 45-item instrument constructed for this research. The facilitation score was regressed on caregivers' role-specific self-concept (e.g., caregiver competence), informal social network support, utilization of the informal network as a lay referral system, formal network support, and reported health status of the care recipient. Background variables and health beliefs were considered as control variables. The resource variable best correlated with adherence facilitation was the personal resource of caregiver competence — perception of oneself as a good caregiver — followed by two social resources: support of the professional health care provider and the presence of a lay referral system (R2 = 0.37). Thus, although the care recipient is the beneficiary of adherence facilitation, the caregiving characteristics of the caregiver appear to affect its extent.

With a view to reducing the exhaustion experienced by informal caregivers and thus encourage the frail elderly to remain at home, a new free respite care program, which offers to house the frail elderly one week per month, was evaluated using an array of multiple cases. Ajzen and Madden's (1986) theory of reasoned action was used as a model to explain the effect of the program on the caregivers' intention to resort to permanent accommodation. Fourteen informal caregivers took part in the program evaluation process. An analysis of the reports of the meetings of the program's Implementation Committee revealed that human and material resources had been used as established in the initial plan. Seven subjects completed the 12 months planned for evaluating the program and were able to continue with the program thereafter. An analysis of the data, using graphic representations and pre-experimental and experimental phase medians, did not reveal any decrease in the perceived burden and in the intention to resort to accommodation in subjects who had completed the program evaluation process. Those who dropped out did so in part because of the high level of perceived burden and the caregivers' intention to resort to accommodation prior to entering the program. Unstructured telephone interviews with the caregivers suggest, moreover, that an elderly person's loss of autonomy, a good financial situation, and the caregiver's decreased feeling of guilt at the idea of housing his/her relative are important determining factors in the caregiver's decision to use permanent accommodation.

The goodness-of-fit hypothesis contends that distress results due to incongruence between choice of coping strategies and perceived ability to change stressful stimuli. Goal-directed or active coping responses are believed to be most efficacious when the individual believes s/he can change or control perceived threats (i.e., problem-focused coping). Instances in which stressors must be accepted, however, would dictate reliance upon strategies to regulate distress (i.e., emotion-focused coping). Inconsistent support for this facet of Lazarus and Folkman's cognitive phenomenological model was obtained in this study of spouses of suspected dementia patients. The distinction between emotion- and problem-focused coping appears less germane than overall coping efforts relative to perceived control and caregiver burden. In addition, perceived ability to control dementia-related stressors appears to be somewhat independent of coping by caregivers. These findings are discussed in terms of the unique and chronic demands faced by spouses of persons with dementia.