A Critical Analysis of Relevant Literature

Introduction

The development of the role of being an effective practitioner is required so that dignified and evidence-based care can be provided to the service users and work-based learning can be maximised. In this process, the essay topic to be focussed is experiences of family caregivers while caring for mentally-ill individuals in the family for long period. The information regarding the topic is to be collected from a relevant single article so that based on the evidence health practitioner can understand the way they are to support patients as well as family carers so that a quality care environment can be built which ensure well-being to the patients as well as the family. Moreover, the domain of NHS outcomes to be focussed is to be mentioned and rationale for the relevance of the domain in relation to the topic selected is to be discussed. The article chosen is to be analysed by using CASP tool to evaluate its strength and limitation so that it can be understood the which findings from the study can be implemented by the health practitioner to be effective in delivering better care support to patients as well as their family carers. The topic is significant because there are fewer studies which inform the way family carers are affected by the care burden they take to manage their long-term mentally-ill members. Thus, executing focus on this topic would help to understand the way social, emotional, health and lifestyle of the family carers are affected by the condition and the nature of assistance they require so that they can lead a normal life as well as effectively care for the family member.

Discussion

Evidence-based practice is the approach which is used for developing quality decision and delivering effective nursing care based on the clinical expertise present in the most current and relevant research regarding the topic of focus (Blease, Lilienfeld & Kelley, 2016). The significance of evidence-based practice in present social and health environment is that it reduces occurrence of error in care as well as promotes better quality care support to the patients, in turn, reducing their health expenses (Harvey & Kitson, 2015). This is because the evidence-based practices lead the health practitioners to have expert clinical knowledge regarding way the mentioned illness is to be managed in patients through proper way of care support. Thus, evidence-based practice is significant in present condition to create better health outcomes for the patients as well as avoid the use of outdated practices to be implemented for care (Saunders & Vehviläinen-Julkunen, 2016).

The chosen domain of NHS outcome in this essay is domain 2 that focuses on enhancing quality of life for individuals who are experiencing long-term condition (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2016). The people with long-term condition are mostly seen to be emotionally broken as a result of extensive suffering from health issue. Moreover, physical inability of the people with long-term condition to manage their condition makes them burden of care on their family members (Wallace et al. 2015). Thus, the domain is chosen to be discussed because ideas of improving the quality of life for the patients would help them develop better emotional, physical and social health, in turn, making them be able to achieve better way of leading life by coping with the illness.

The chosen field of nursing focuses to understand the experiences of family carers in taking care of patients with long-term mental health condition. In long-term conditions, the family carers are seen to experience professional, financial and social limitation due to their responsibility of caring for their long-term ill family member for whom they have to spend increased amount of time, money and provide assistance to support their living (Crowe & Brinkley, 2015). This chosen nursing field relates to the mentioned domain of NHS outcome because improving the quality-of-life of individuals suffering from long-term condition requires equal participation of family carers. Therefore, by understand the experiences faced by family carer resilient behaviour shown during caring for the service users who have long-term condition the NHS would understand the nature of support to be provided. This is required so that the family carers negative experiences can be resolved to make them collaboratively participate in fulfilling the NHS outcome of providing better quality life to the service users with long-term condition.

The chosen research paper has the key objective to identify the experiences faced by family carers while caring for an older parent who has long-term mental illness (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). The research paper is chosen because it informs in details about the positive and negative experiences of family carers regarding their involvement in providing support to their parent having long-term condition. Moreover, it informs about the way family carers are participating to resolve burden of care and negative experiences while supporting long-term condition individuals in the family to improve quality-of-life for both. The paper relates to the NHS domain of improving quality-of-life for patients with long-term condition because it informs regarding the way to achieve it by the family carers. This is evident as the paper informs that engaging patients with long-term mental health condition in everyday work from brief amount of time is making them become productive as well as providing relief to the family carer to take rest. Moreover, it is informed that different members in the family and friends in the society are taking turns to communicate with the long-term mentally-ill individuals whenever convenient making them able to remain socially active (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). Thus, engagement of long-term mentally-ill individuals in productive work and developing communication with them makes the individuals able to move physically and socially communicate with others which provides them relief from boredom ensuring better quality life.

The chosen study is to be appraised by using CASP tool because it is the tool that assists people to have skill to find and systematically make sense of evidence from the study, in turn, helping them to apply the information in practice to gain better results (Noyes et al. 2018). The chosen study has a properly defined aim which acts as its strength. This is because properly stated aim of the study help readers to determine overview of the research which assists them to understand whether or not the paper relates with their area of research (Bengtsson, 2016). The tool mentions checking if the qualitative methodology is appropriate (Williams, Boylan & Nunan, 2019). The study has followed qualitative methodology appropriately which is evident as they have used human experiences collected through interview to present findings of the study. In addition, the qualitative methodology is the strength of the study because it helped it to provide in-depth information regarding the experiences of family carers and the way they develop resilience as well as improves quality of life of service users with long-term mental condition (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). However, the choice of qualitative methodology is going to create limitation for the study because the findings are going to be context-bound to the nature of selected participants and settings making hindrance to create generalisation of results (Green & Thorogood, 2018).

The study mentions that it has used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) research as research design (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). The IPA is referred to the approach used in psychological qualitative research with the aim to develop insight into the minds of individuals (Cronin & Lowes, 2016). The use of IPA acts as strength for the study because it is going to help the health practitioners have detailed information regarding the experiences of family carers in caring for the individuals as well as the care experiences and needs of service users to ensure them better quality life. The recruitment strategy used in the study is interview strategy and it relates with the aim as through the strategy lived experiences of family carers while caring for long-term mentally-ill individuals are effectively known in detailed as well as the way they are developing resilience in this context (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). However, the recruitment strategy is creating limitation for the study because it is allowing participants to be selected to share experience who are engaged in caring of their family member accessing help from aged persons’ mental health service. This means the family carers who are not engaged with the services may have different experience and resilience ways to share that may alter the study results (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015).

The data collection in the study was done in private through semi-structured interview and audio-recording through phone (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). The use of semi-structured interview acts as strength for the study because it allows all the participants have freedom for expressing their opinion helping to develop reliable and comparable qualitative information (Kallio et al. 2016). Moreover, audio-recording acts as the strength of the study as it helps to maintain the confidentiality of the participants (Lo Iacono, Symonds & Brown, 2016). The researcher has developed approval of the study from the Melbourne Health Research Ethics Committee and consent of the participants to be included in the study are accessed to ensuring ethical issues are avoided in the study (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). The study has executed in-depth data analysis by developing themes and findings are clearly stated by mentioning direct quotations from the participants from the interview. This act as strength of the study as it helped the research to allow reader understands that the results are not manipulated as real facts are mentioned (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). The research is valuable as it can be used to frame policies for instrumentally, financial and emotionally support family carers to have better quality life for themselves as well as for the service users who are members of the family.

One of the findings from the study mentions that family carers’ access support from friends and other family members to make patients with long-term condition become busy and productive in life as well as take brief relief (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). This finding from the study is robust to support improved quality life for the patients with long-term mental health condition as well as their family carers because it mentions regarding the way family carers can access emotional and instrumental help from others to improve their and patient’s well-being. The other finding of the study mentions that family carers with the help from other family members take patients with long-term mental condition for walk and communicate with them empathetically so that the patient feels physically productive and socially included (McCann, Bamberg & McCann, 2015). This study finding is robust for improving quality of life of patients with long-term condition and their primary carers as it shows the way family carers are to include themselves in sharing responsibility so that patients can be physically and socially active, as well as the carers, can access relief from the burden of care.

The findings from the paper have contributed to my professional development as a student nurse by providing me idea regarding the way I need to ask the primary carers to get relieved of their burden of care as well as ensure better quality living for their parents or family members. Moreover, the study findings have led to my professional development as it helped me to understand the emotional and instrumental needs of family carers which are to be fulfilled to ensure they engage in proper care of the patients with long-term mental health condition for assuring better quality life. The findings of the study have contributed in development of other health practitioners in the nursing field by informing them about the way they are to guide family carers in supporting their family members with long-term condition have improved quality of life for both of them without experiencing burden of care.

Conclusion

Summary

The above discussion informs that NHS domain 2 is selected which has the key focus on improving quality of life of people suffering from long-term conditions. The key practice area of interest chosen is primary carers support to patients with long-term mental condition. The selected NHS domain related to the area of practice because effective contribution from primary careers is required to ensure better quality life for the service users. Therefore, by understand the experiences faced by family carers and resilient behaviour shown during caring for the service users who have long-term condition the NHS would understand the way support is to be provided to achieve the outcome. The limitation of selected study is choice of qualitative research methodology and selective recruitment.

Recommendations

In the light of findings and conclusion, the study is recommended to use selection of participants who are not engaged with any services to provide support to their family with long-term mental health condition. This is because it would help to understand way the primary caregivers are managing care of patients to ensure their better quality life without assistance of any services. Moreover, it is recommended that family carers should access assistance from community nurses to take relief from care burden and ensure providing effective care to the family members to improve their quality of life. This is because community nurses are more experience in making the patients with long-term mental health condition learns different physical and psychological activity to have better quality life.

References

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