Using the connecting process to meet family caregiver needs

Individuals who engage in caregiving responsibilities for dependent family members in the home setting face challenges that are little understood by others outside the circle of care. Because a large portion of energy is devoted to caregiving tasks, caregivers potentially fail to devote attention to meeting their own needs. The purpose of this study was to develop a beginning substantive theory describing the needs perceived by caregivers and the processes by which these caregivers are able to get their individual needs met. Grounded theory methodology was used to facilitate the identification of these needs and processes. This study concluded that the needs for help, hope, and happiness are the most crucial needs of family caregivers. The basic social process of connecting was identified as fundamental to meeting caregiver needs. Subprocesses of misconnecting and disconnecting were identified as concurrent processes that existed as functions of connecting and that affected the connecting process. The connecting process was seen as an organizing concept that could both give direction to the practice of nursing care for caregiving families and lay the foundation for continued research and theory development.