Your Emotional Needs as a Caregiver

Your Emotional Needs as a Caregiver

Caregiving is one of the most selfless and profound roles a person can take on. Caring for a loved one can be both deeply rewarding and incredibly demanding. Amid the countless tasks, appointments, and emotional labour, it’s easy to put your own needs on hold.

But, caregivers are human too. Tending to your own well-being is not selfish; it’s essential. Just as you provide care and comfort to others, you deserve compassion, support, and time to breathe.

Caregiver Stress and Its Common Causes

You may experience caregiver stress from being a caregiver. These stressors can arise from

Role strain arises when caregivers lack knowledge and experience in caregiving responsibilities. When you experience role strain, you may feel overwhelmed and confused about your care tasks and express that you do not have enough support.

Role strain can occur when there is:

  • An increase in the patients’ care needs
  • Challenging behaviour of the patient arising from (but not limited to these)
    • pre-existing mental health conditions; 
    • personality types or traits; 
    • addiction; 
    • history of violence; 
    • history of marital or family conflicts; 
    • suicidal ideation
  • Unstable health status of the patient (eg. physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health)
  • Changes in the relationship between patient and caregiver, such as role reversal
  • Additional competing role commitments, such as other caregiving roles to ageing parents/ other family members/to children, work commitments etc.

For more information on your loved one’s psychosocial needs, please click here.

Personal strain often occurs when the role of being a caregiver has direct impacts on the financial, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health of the caregiver.

This may happen due to:

  • Costs of medical and nursing care for the patient
  • Inadequate physical endurance
  • Not prioritising their own healthcare needs
  • Inadequate psychological resilience and coping strategies for depression, anxiety and grief
  • Questions about the meaning of life, death, and suffering witnessed in the patient

You may struggle with caregiving expectations from others and/ or from yourself. For example, you may expect yourself to be a filial child to care for your parent. Hence, although you may be struggling, you do not voice it as you expect yourself to do better

Tips on handling role strain, personal strain and performance

  • Visit Vertis Healthcare Marketplace and select a suitable caregiver’s training programme
  • Register for the “Preparatory Caregiver Training Programme” under the National Council of Social Service, Social Service Institute
  • Visit Caregiver Support Groups in Singapore and attend a caregiver’s support group
  • Talk to your loved ones or friends about your struggles and ask for help
  • Give yourself permission to take a break from caregiving at regular intervals for self-care
  • Seek professional help through Family Service Centres, Counselling Centres, etc., or access relevant resources through this link.

Caregiver Distress Screening

It is important to check in to see how you are feeling. The following is a list of statements that reflect how individuals sometimes feel when taking care of another person. After reading each statement, select the number that best corresponds to how often you experience that feeling.

0 Never 1 Rarely 2 Sometimes 3 Frequently 4 Nearly Always
0 of 12 answered
Your score: 0 / 48
Result: —

Resources on Caring for Yourself

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