The influence of the cardiac surgery patient's sex and age on care-giving received

• Published in: Social science & medicine (1982) 1999-06, Vol.48 (12), p.1735-1742
• Main Authors: King, Kathryn M, Koop, Priscilla M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; After Care; Age; Age Differences; Age Factors; Age groups; Aged; Alberta; Analysis of Variance; Biological and medical sciences; Canada; Cardiac surgery; Care-giving; Care-giving Social support Cardiac surgery Canada; Caregiver Burden; Caregivers; Caregivers - psychology; Caregivers - statistics & numerical data; Caring; Chi-Square Distribution; Coronary Disease - nursing; Coronary Disease - psychology; Coronary Disease - surgery; Factors; Family Health; Female; Gender; Gender Identity; Health Care Surveys; Heart disease; Heart Diseases; Home Nursing - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Illness; Informal care; Male; Medical sciences; Men; Middle Aged; Miscellaneous; Patient Care Planning; Patient Selection; Patients; Postoperative Care - statistics & numerical data; Sex Differences; Sex Factors; Sexes; Social Support; Sociodemographic Characteristics; Surgery; Surgery (general aspects). Transplantations, organ and tissue grafts. Graft diseases; Women
• ISSN: 0277-9536; 1873-5347
• DOI: 10.1016/S0277-9536(99)00070-2

Care-giving research has predominantly focused on the care-givers of those with long-term illness and the elderly. Little attention has been given to examining care-giving from the perspective of the person receiving the care, differentiating how the sex or age of the person may influence the care received, or examining care-giving in the context of shorter term situations where the patient is expected to recover. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of the informal care-givers of cardiac surgery patients from three hospitals in one Canadian province and the effect of patient characteristics (sex, age) on their experience of receiving that care. A prospective, non-randomized design, was used to examine the short-term recovery from cardiac surgery of 120 subjects (60 men, 60 women). Patients were interviewed preoperatively and then at monthly intervals through the third postoperative month. The findings from this study suggest that the patterns of informal care-giving noted in the chronic care literature are also present in the short-term care of post-surgical cardiac patients. The burden of care-giving continues to rest predominantly on women. Female patients relied on their spouses for help less frequently than did male patients and their care-givers were more frequently employed outside the home and in lower status jobs than were the care-givers of male patients. 30% of care-givers were reported to have a health problem of their own to manage while caring for the recovering patient. Patients who were male or who were