Home Health Care Patients and Their Caregivers' Requirements of Psychosocial and Spiritual Support for Better Health

Home health care services must be integrative and aims to improve both the patients’ and their relatives’ health on physically, socially and mentally. The aim of this study is to determine the psychological, sociological and emotional support needs of the caregivers who take care of home health care. This is a cross-sectional study which was conducted between May and October 2016 in Istanbul to 139 caregivers with convenience sampling in 15 district. Caregivers were preferred instead of patients because of their health disadvantages. Application of the survey took place face to face. Survey has two parts one of about patients and the other is about caregivers. Survey was applied to 89 people who accepted the interview. 64.0% of patients receiving home health care are women. All patients except for one are covered by an insurance system. 61.8% of patients have their own income and assets. 93.3% of the patients do not receive disability salary. In addition, 80.7% of patients do not have a disability report. Neurological (31.9%) and cardiovascular system (24.9%) are the most common problems of home health care patients. 84.3% of the caregivers are female. 61.8% of caregivers graduate primary school, 75.0% of them are married and 85.2% of them are unemployed. 92.1% of caregivers are first or second degree relatives of the patient. The duration of care doesn’t exceed three years in 64.7% of individuals. Only 6,8% of caregivers receive the care fee provided by the government. 94.4% of caregivers were not trained in caregiving and 66.3% don’t feel sufficient to give someone medical care. In addition, 56.2% of caregivers need psychological support and 23.6% need spiritual support. It is observed that patients who receive home health services can’t benefit from the social rights adequately provided by the government. Most of the caregivers need education in home health care. Also they need psychological, social and spiritual supports. ？ntegrative home health care service models should be developed provided that psychosocial and spiritual supports considering both patients and caregivers needs. Consequently, social workers, psychologists and spiritual support personels should be including more in home health care teams considering the social determinants of health