The Role of the Spirituality in Positive Elder Caregiving: Korean Family Caregivers' Experience

Background and Purpose:Recently researchers have increasingly paid attention to the relationship between caregiver’s spirituality and its influences on caregiving. However, most studies have focused on the influences of spirituality on caregiver’s own strains associated with caregiving. Few studies have tried to understand the relationship between family caregiver’s spirituality and their positive caregiving experience.

This study seeks to advance our knowledge in this area by exploring how Korean family caregivers of older adults with frailty can transform their caregiving experience, which often involves stress and burden, into a positive experience for both care recipients and caregivers in relation to spirituality.

Methods:Eighteen family caregivers, who cared for older adults with frailty at home, were recruited using purposive sampling in South Korea. A qualitative design guided by natural inquiry approach based on social constructionism was adopted and involved semi-structured in-depth interviews. The sample is predominantly female (17 female; 1 male) and care recipient’s adult children (10 daughter-in-laws; 6 daughters; 1 son; 1 wife). The age range of all participants is between 38~65 years old (mean=54), while care recipients’ age ranged from 65 to 102 (mean= 84). The participants were providing care to care recipients from 3 to 32 years (mean=9). The family caregivers were asked to respond to a series of open ended questions about their caregiving experience in relation to their spirituality. Follow-up interviews were also conducted. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and coded thematically using Atlas.ti qualitative software. The constant comparative method of qualitative data analysis was employed.

Findings:All caregivers interviewed reported that spirituality influenced their caregiving in some ways, though the extent and content of the influence was not unitary. According to the data analysis, three major roles of spirituality in relation to caregiving were identified; motivating, sustaining, and transforming role. The ‘motivating role’ is one in which spirituality helps to motivate caregivers to take the caregiving role willingly. The most common role is the ‘sustaining role’ meaning that spirituality plays a crucial role in helping caregivers cope with physical or mental stress while providing care. The third theme that emerged is the ‘transforming role’. Some caregivers described that they experienced positive changes of their perspectives on their caregiving and relationship with care recipients, and that it was spirituality that made them happen. These roles of spirituality were not independent but closely interwoven. Findings indicate that the spirituality of Korean family caregivers has positive influences on their caregiving experience via different roles throughout the caregiving process.

Conclusion and Implications: Findings confirm the importance of spirituality in helping family caregivers of older adults to take and keep their role in a positive way. Furthermore, this implies that caregiver’s spirituality can also play an important role in enhancing the wellbeing not only for the caregivers but also for care recipients. Despite differences of cultural context, the findings of this study may have implications in the design and delivery of services for spiritually sensitive intervention with diverse ethnic group families caring for older adults.