Tydsperspektief as potensiële psigofortigene konstruk by die rouproses van versorgers van Alzeimer-pasiënte

English: The passing away of a spouse is regarded as one of the most traumatic experiences any individual can encounter. The successful management of this loss, and the process of regaining psychological well-being places a big demand on the surviving spouse. When this event befalls an elderly person, which is often the case, the situation presents the spouse with unique challenges. From a prior study (Potgieter, 2000) focusing on the psychological needs of Alzheimer caregivers, it became clear that the presence of Alzheimer's disease adds additional, and often complicating factors to dealing with this experience of loss. The first objective of this study was to describe, as clearly as possible, the experiences of Alzheimer-caregivers while facing the challenges presented by this unique grieving process. Secondly attention was given, from a psychofortigenic perspective, to the potential role that the caregiver's future time perspective might play in the caregiver's successful handling of this grieving process. This survey focused on female spouses who served as caregivers after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease was confirmed in their marital partners. Through the use of both quantitative and qualitative means of data analysis, the experiences of 20 caregivers were compared with a control group consisting of ladies from more or Jess the same age group. During the quantitative survey, it was expected of each of the 40 respondents to complete four questionnaires. Respondents' life satisfaction was determined by means of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmonds, Larsen & Griffin, 1985). The Sense of Coherence Questionnaire (Antonovsky, 1987) and the Fortitude Questionnaire (Pretorius, 1998) were administered as a means of determining the level of psychological health or strength of respondents. By means of the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (Snyder, 2000), also called the 'Goals Scale', the inter-group differences in respondents' levels op hope were identified. The main focus of this study was, however, of a qualitative nature. Individual interviews with 20 of the respondents, as well as material from personal diaries that were made available by some of the ladies and were analysed, shed some light on the exact nature of the caregivers' experiences of the accompanying grieving process. As part of the qualitative survey, the SELE-instrument (Westerhof & Bode, 1999) was used to determine the time perspectives of the individual respondents. As suggested by a prior study, the occurrence of a unique grieving process amongst caregivers of Alzheimer patients was confirmed and described in detail. It was also clear that both the time perspective and the psychological well-being of caregivers were adversely affected by this grieving process. Results showed that both a direct and indirect (through intervening variables) link exists between the time perspective and psychological well-being of these elderly caregivers. This result confirmed the potential role that future time perspective might play as a psychofortigenic factor during this and similar caregiving situations. If the identified factors were built into a support program, they could prove to be invaluable in protecting the psychological well-being of caregivers, both during and after the caregiving process.