Ensamhet ses som en riskfaktor för att utveckla fysisk och mental ohälsa. I Sverige uppskattas var tionde äldre vuxen besväras av ensamhet och psykisk ohälsa. I denna fenomenologiskt inspirerade studie har 19 äldre personer mellan 66-94 år intervjuats om varför de är ensamma och hur de upplever ensamheten, detta innan de deltog i ett äldre kollo sommaren 2017.
Målgruppen för äldre kollot var äldre personer som upplever att de är ensamma och har ett begränsat socialt umgänge och som inte har möjlighet att själva att ta initiativ till att delta i olika aktiviteter och bryta ensamheten.
Syftet med studien var att få kunskap om varför informanterna upplevde ensamhet samt hur de beskrev sina erfarenheter av att vara ensamma innan de deltog i äldre kollot.
Informanterna angav flera orsaker till sin ensamhet och det som framkom i resultaten var bl.a. att det var svårare att få kontakt med andra personer på äldre dar, vänner och bekanta har dött och vänskapsrelationer som de haft tidigare har varit svåra att behålla. Många av informanterna var anhörigvårdare till sin make/maka, några hade nyligen flyttat, de hade sämre ekonomi och att de inte kunde förflytta sig lika flexibelt som tidigare då de inte hade en bil att tillgå. När det gäller upplevelsen om ensamhet utryckte många informanter att de kände sig väldigt ensamma trots att de hade ett aktivt socialt liv. De saknade meningsfulla relationer, någon som de kunde vända sig till i förtroende och utveckla en nära vänskapsrelation med. De upplevde behovet av att tillhöra något eller behovet av en förändring i vardagen.
Loneliness is seen as a risk factor for decreased physical and mental health. Swedish studies have shown that every ten older adults experience severe anxiety and 15 percent are often bothered by loneliness. According to Swedish law all older adults should have an active and meaningful life in community with others. Thus, loneliness among older people has become an important concern in Sweden. Within municipalities various projects are taking place to decrease loneliness among older adults, but these projects are often poorly evaluated. Therefore, knowledge of interventions to decrease loneliness among older adults is essential. From a larger phenomenological inspired study based on interviews with 19 older adults (4 men and 15 women) who had been attending a summer camp, this presentation will bring attention to the reason that these older adults were applying for this experience. Thus, the aim in this part of the study was to explore why they were feeling lonely and considered themselves in need of attending a summer camp and also how they experience loneliness. Often, anxiety and illness are associated with loneliness, but our analysis showed a complex picture of why the interviewees were feeling lonely. Furthermore their experience of loneliness was due not only to an absence of other people to socialize with, but also with the quality of the relationship. This study makes an important contribution in understanding loneliness at older ages and identifies factors that might lead to loneliness among older adults.
The aim of the present study was explore why the informants were feeling lonely and considered themselves to be in need of attending a senior summer camp, and how the informants were experiencing loneliness before they went to the senior summer camp. Interviews was made with nineteen older adult people (15 women and 4 men). A phenomenological inspired approach was used for the analysis of the interviews. Eight themes resulted: Hard to make new friends, Other circumstances making it hard to be social, Feel very lonely even if they lead rich social lives, Loss of loved ones, Do not want to do things alone, Friends make a difference, Do not feel lonely but need a change and Loneliness occurs at certain times. Through this analysis, we have gain insights to better understand loneliness as a multifaceted phenomenon that is asso-ciated with both personal circumstances and social situations. Many of the informants experienced being very lonely, even if they lead rich social lives. The experience of loneliness was connected to not having anyone they can turn to in confidence or to share experiences with and the need to belong to something or the need of a change in everyday life.
From a study, with face-to-face interviews with 19 caregiving men that provides care for an elderly parents or in-law, this presentation will bring attention to men’s perceptions of care and caregiving. The literature on family caregiving as well as the theoretical debate on the concept of care, has focused almost exclusively on women. This focus has meant that although gender analysis are not uncommon in the literature in question, gender tends to be equated with womanhood. This because women are assumed to engage in more care work than men and that women are seen as natural care providers. This means that women’s experiences and definitions of care work have guided much gerontological scholarship, and have provided the standards against which men’s experiences are compared. However, the men interviewed in this study emphasizes that caregiving is natural and that caregiving is a part of their personality. Some of them stressed also that they felt that the ability to provide care comes natural to them and is a part of their identity even if they acknowledged that caregiving and manhood are not considered to be synonymous. Several of the interviewed men also connect their caregiving responsibility to the experience of being fathers. They stressed that being able to respond to someone’s care needs is not something that only women can do. This suggests that while being a caregiver is a part of these caregiving men’s identity, this does not only challenge gender and masculinity norms, it also challenges the norms of caregiving.
In caregiving literature, it is often the female gender that has been the focus of attention, and in particular women’s unpaid labor. Studies also tend to make comparisons between men’s and women’s caregiving, using men’s caregiving experiences to show not only that women face greater burdens, but also that men’s needs can be minimized. This means that while gender analysis is not uncommon in the caregiving literature, gender tends to be equated with womanhood. This is impeding us from moving the debates on care and caregiving forward. The dissertation argues – through a phenomenological analysis of men’s motives, experiences and perceptions of care and caregiving – that much could be gained if we were to rectify the gender bias by bringing attention to caregiving men in the gender-aware and masculinity-informed way that is lacking in the family caregiving literature at present. For this dissertation, 19 caregiving adult sons and sons-in-law were interviewed. The aim of the study is twofold. Firstly, it attempts to contribute to the rectification of the gender bias found in the literature on family caregiving by focusing on men’s caregiving and answering the following research questions: What motivates men to provide care for their elderly parents? How do adult sons experience caregiving? What do adult sons think that care and caregiving are, i.e. what are their perspectives on care? Secondly, this dissertation also aims to explore whether a gender-aware and masculinity-informed perspective can be used to enhance our understanding of caregiving. This study discusses how motives, experiences and perspectives, which have so far been interpreted as unique to women, are also matters that men talk about and consider important in caregiving. Thus, this study shows that a gender-aware and masculinity-informed perspective on care can increase our understanding of family caregiving and contribute to rectify the gender bias that care research suffers from. The study suggests that caregiving men should not solely be regarded as empirically interesting. This is because they are an unexploited and theoretically profuse source of information about caregiving.
Denna presentation kommer att handla om ett pågående avhandlingsprojekt som syftar till att bidra med kunskap om informell omsorg genom vuxna söners upplevelser av att ge informell omsorg till äldre föräldrar. Vidare syftar också avhandlingen till att bidra med kunskap till manskulinitetsforskningen genom att fokusera på informell omsorg utfört av män. För även om könsroller har studerats i omsorgsfrågor sedan 1980-talet är det ganska nyligen som män inkluderas vid studier om informell omsorg. Det mesta av forskningen om män som informella omsorgsgivare är utförd i USA. Forskningen fokuserar oftast på äkta make, vilka också utför det mesta av den informella omsorgen jämfört med andra män som t.ex. söner. Dock kan studier om söner som ger informell omsorg vara en viktig utgångspunkt när det gäller att undersöka omsorg och maskuliniteter. Genom att kunskapen om mäns, och då främst söners, informella omsorgsansvar internationellt och i Sverige är låg saknas kunskap om vad som får söner att ta ett omsorgsansvar. Det saknas också kunskap om det stöd som tillhandahålls av välfärdsin-stitutioner och organisationer i civilsamhället – vilka har utformats för kvinnliga anhöriga – faktiskt lämpar sig för män och då främst söner som ger informell omsorg till äldre närstående. Denna presentation kommer därför att handla om att belysa ett negligerat forskningsområde med stor potential att bidra med ny kunskap till den socialgerontologiska forskningen om informell omsorg och till maskulinititetsforskning i och med att informell omsorg är ett relativt outforskat perspektiv inom detta område.
Scholarship on family caregiving has recognized that gender plays an important role in the way in which care is provided, and received across the life-course. When this scholarship has engaged in debates regarding the importance of gender, it is, however, the female gender that has received the most attention. Thus, although men’s caregiving experiences have been the focus of some studies over the two past decades, family caregiving is still regarded as a female activity. Research on family caregiving has yet to recognize men’s caregiving as a theoretically profuse source of information about family care. It is against this backdrop that we set out to study how men – who provide care to their elderly parents and parents in law – regard the caregiving that they are involved in. The presentation will bring attention to the results of a study that uses face-to-face interviews with 19 men (17 sons and 2 sons-in-law) who provide care to an elderly parent or in-law who is in need of help and support. In doing so, it will shed light on how these men’s understandings of masculinity inform their understandings and experiences of caregiving. This presentation will therefore contribute to expanding the gender imagination of caregiving scholarship by challenging the stereotypical beliefs about men that inform studies of family caregiving at present.