title: Nurses negotiating professional-familial care boundaries: striving for balance within double duty caregiving.
abstract: The purpose of this sequential, two-phase mixed-methods study was to examine the health of male and female nurses who provided care to older relatives (i.e., double duty caregivers). We explored the experiences of 32 double duty caregivers, which led to the development of an emergent grounded theory, Negotiating Professional-Familial Care Boundaries with two broad dialectical processes: professionalizing familial care and striving for balance. This article examines striving for balance, which is the process that responds to familial care expectations in the midst of available resources and reflects the health experiences of double duty caregivers. Two subprocesses of striving for balance, reaping the benefits and taking a toll, are presented in three composite vignettes, each representing specific double duty caregiving (DDC) prototypes (making it work, working to manage, living on the edge). This emergent theory extends current thinking of family caregiving that will inform the development and refinement of practices and policies relevant to DDC.
authors.affiliation: Western University, London, Ontario, Canada cwg@uwo.ca.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ward-Griffin
authors.affiliation: Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Judith Belle
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Oona
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: St-Amant
authors.affiliation: Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Nisha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sutherland
authors.affiliation: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martin-Matthews
authors.affiliation: Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: Janice
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Keefe
authors.affiliation: Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Mickey
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kerr
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology*; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D022143:Family Nursing; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017008:Negotiating / Q000523:psychology; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D014931:Women, Working / Q000523:psychology
keywords: blurring boundaries; caregiving; elder care; family caregiving; nurse-as-family-caregiver; nurses; work–family interface