Caregiving and the Resultant Subjective

¶ … caregiving and the resultant subjective burden on the part of the caregiver, little research has been accorded to variables that produce feelings of satisfaction on the part of the caregiver. Little research, too, has been accorded to examining associations between family factors (such as family support) and the caregiver's subjective response. Baronet's (2003) study was intended to fill this gap.

Baronet theorizes that so-called hard and factual ontological variables such as the caregiver's location (contextual), and other characteristics such as his or her age and kinship with the patient will effect the epistemological manner in which the caregiver views the patient and the situation (i.e. The subjective burden of the caregiving situation), and which will, then, in turn, consequent in the axiological finale of the amount of stress the caregiver is likely to feel.

As regards the associations between family factors and the caretaker's subjective response, Baronet hypothesizes that the above argument can demonstrate, too, that the axiological premise of family support can alleviate this stress. In this manner, Baronet uses logical positivism as her base in framing her research study since she posits that subjective burden and qualitative reaction can be reduced to hard, empirical factors.

In implementing her study, therefore, the author controlled these 'hard' ontological factors, namely caregiver's age and kinship with the person with mental illness; context of the caregiving situation (coresidence status), and symptomatic behaviors of the person with mental illness. She also used instruments such as the Burden Assessment Scale to measure the epistemological subjective feelings that caregiver experienced towards patient, in order to assess axiological (or end) results, i.e., the amount of care the caregiver demonstrated to her work.

This latter situation was measured by the Care Work Satisfaction Scale. Finally, perceived family support was assessed by the Perceived Social Support from Family scale. Baronet's hypotheses were that, after controlling contextual and other specified variables, a low level of family support and a high level of relationship difficulties between the caregiver and the care recipient would be associated with high subjective burden (the ontological, 'positivistic' variable of the caregiver's life).

Baronet's second assumption was that a low level of family support and a high level of relationship would also be associated with low feelings of satisfaction (the epistemological assumptions on the part of the caregiver). Results, however, showed that family support played no part neither in determining feelings of satisfaction nor in providing subjective burden resultant from caregiving activates. Science as a discipline incorporates eight characteristics. These are: empirical (i.e. evidence-based, hard facts); systematic (i.e. related to or consisting of a system); theoretical (i.e.

related to or consisting of a theory); provisional (i.e. temporary until replaced by another theory that makes more sense); public (i.e. The findings of science are not restricted to any specific sector, but are available to the public sector as a whole); objective (i.e. attempting to be corroborated by reality rather than biased and subjective); self-reflective (i.e. aiming to step back and criticize itself); and open-ended (in that Science constantly attempts to develop itself and to review and modify its.