How do family caregivers describe their needs for professional help?

METHODS As described in Table 1 (see page 36), most respondents were women and middle to lower middle class. The group was diverse in race and ethnicity. Respondents were experienced caregivers typically caring for recipients with some degree of cognitive impairment. Using standard focus group interview techniques, views were elicited on the central question: In your caregiving role, what has been hard for you that you expected nurses and social workers to help you with? Responses were categorized according to topic, and participants ranked their priorities privately. The interviews were taperecorded and transcribed. The responses of all 40 participants were included in the categorization of needs; four participants’ responses were omitted from the priority rankings because they assigned the same ranking to more than one need. In averaging rankings across the four focus group interviews, topics that weren’t mentioned by a particular group and therefore weren’t ranked were excluded from the denominator (noted in parentheses in Table 2, on page 37).