Informal care in the context of long-term health care for the elderly in Slovenia: A qualitative study
Article Category: Original scientific article
Published Online: Jun 28, 2021
Page range: 167 - 175
Received: Jan 04, 2021
Accepted: Jun 01, 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjph-2021-0024
Keywords
© 2021 National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Background
Slovenia is an aging society. Social security expenditures for the elderly are rising steadily, and the majority of Slovenians are firmly convinced that the state must provide elder care. This situation means that informal caregivers face many challenges and problems in their altruistic mission.
Objectives
To explore the experiences and feelings of informal caregivers and to provide an understanding of how informal caregivers support the elderly and what challenges and difficulties they face in Slovenian society.
Methods
The study is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 10 caregivers. In addition to descriptive statistics, we conducted a qualitative study using the qualitative content analysis method.
Results
We identified four themes among health caregivers’ experiences with challenges and problems in providing long-term health care for the elderly. Caregivers pointed out that they are mostly left to themselves and their altruistic mission of giving informal long-term care to their elderly relatives and friends. Systemic regulation of the national public health care system is the source of many problems.
Conclusion
Other social systems determine and limit the position of informal caregivers in Slovenia. This qualitative study should be understood as useful stepping-stone to future research and real improvement in this area.