| Summary: | Wives caregiving for husbands with Alzheimer disease (AD) pursue the
caregiving role within the context of their pre-illness marital relationships. A
relationship-oriented approach to understanding informal family caregiving from
the wives' perspective of their experience caregiving for their husbands with AD
offers a new perspective to enable nurses to identify the caregiver's individual
support needs. The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to contribute to our
knowledge of family caregiving by offering an understanding of the influence of
the marriage relationship from the perspective of wives caregiving for husbands
with AD. This research also endeavored to increase nursing knowledge
regarding the wives' experience caregiving for husbands with AD within the
context of marriage. This qualitative study is a secondary analysis of Dr. JoAnn
Perry's (1995) PhD dissertation data. The secondary research method was
guided by the principles of grounded theory and operated within the interpretive
research tradition of symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism framed the
analysis to promote understanding of the influence of the wives' pre-illness
marital context. The findings of this study revealed that the nature of the preillness
marital relationship for wives caregiving for husbands with AD was formed
by the wives' interpretation of their husbands' behaviour and the meaning they
assign to it and their understanding of their interactions as a married couple. The
nature of the pre-illness marital relationship influenced the wives' ability to (1)
access internal support from the marriage experience, and (2) preserve a sense
of couplehood within the caregiving experience. The concept of connection
emerged as an important experience within the marital-caregiving relationship in
the following two ways. First, connecting with the person describes the process
by which the wives enacted their desire to preserve a sense of couplehood.
Secondly, the marital connection appeared to be the wives' link to internal
support from the past marital relationship experience. Connecting with the past
was one way that wives could enrich their caregiver-care-receiver relationship
and experience gratification from the wife-caregiver role. Further investigation is
required to confirm the marriage context as an influence within spousal
caregiving. The author's interpretation of the wives' narratives in this secondary
analysis offers one understanding of the wives' marital-caregiving experience for
husbands with AD. This research outlines implications for nursing practice,
education, and research.
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