Young carers in Germany: to live on as normal as possible - a grounded theory study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In contrast to a growing body of research on the situation of adult family care givers, in Germany hardly anything is known about the situation of children and teenagers who are involved in the care of their relatives.

Methods

In this Grounded Theory study 81 semi structured interviews have been carried out with children and their parents in 34 families, in which one member is chronically ill. 41 children and 41 parents participated and the sample is heterogeneous and diverse.

Results

On the one hand, there is the phenomenon 'keeping the family together", which describes how families themselves cope with the chronic illness and also, which tasks to what extent are being shifted and redistributed within the family in order to manage daily life. Influencing f

SUBMITTER: Metzing-Blau S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2627850 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature