A Study of Public Library Consumer Health Information Service Model for Dementia Caregivers
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Tsai, Ching-Yi
Abstract
This study aims to enhance the care quality of elderly persons with dementia, and to help reducing caregiver’s stress by means of consumer health information service action research model outreached from public library. Adopting the action research model, the researcher expects to provide useful suggestions based on the research findings to the practitioners, such as librarians and caregivers. This study conducted semi-structured interview and questionnaire to collect data in two parts: first part is through cooperation with Taipei City Songshan District Health Center to hold ‘Health Information Service Program’ for dementia caregivers; second part is to set up a ‘Committee for Evaluating Dementia Health Information Resources’ by inviting five experts specialized in dementia. Four research questions raised in this study are as follows: 1) What information needs do dementia caregivers propose? 2) What are characteristics of dementia health information resources public library could provide? 3) What are the dementia caregivers experience in consumer health information services? 4) How could a public library cooperate with social agencies efficiently on providing consumer health information services for dementia caregivers? According to the research results, the health information which dementia caregivers need represented in three aspects: caring resources of dementia-related subjects, caring resources of dementia-related types, and caring resources of indirectto dementia-related functions. Moreover, group members of Committee for- ‘Evaluating Dementia Health Information Resources’ - proposed five principles for public library to choose resources on dementia: 1) Choosing dementia resources when the author or publisher has medical background, or at iv least to choose resources which had been verified by experts. 2) The year of publication and timeliness of health information resources should be noted. 3) Characteristics of book resources should be easy to read, easy to understand, and have more pictures. 4) The subject of resource content should be classified clearly. 5) There are some priorities in selecting dementia health information resources. The analysis of the experience and feedback results of caregivers using health information resources during the program are as follows: 1) The experience of using the resource provided by the librarian indeed helped caregivers to understand more dementia-related health information; 2) The video resources truly reflected the feelings of caregivers and provided social support; 3) The provision of the resources helped caregivers to access advanced information on new cases and caring skills; 4) The book resources on dementia led caregivers to understand multiple aspects of caregiving; 5) The experience of using the resources helped caregivers to reduce stress and earn a respite which is important to them; 6) The resources, such as APPs were useful for the memory training and reduce boredom; 7) Reminiscent audio discs aroused the memory and helped the interaction between family members; 8) The program unit on library instructions and collections was functional to caregivers; 9) The librarian was perceived as delivery of caring and support to caregivers; 10) Health information resources are also useful as a good intermediary for the whole family. According to the interview results, there are four suggested models for the future cooperations of public library and social agencies: 1) Model of conducting a health information service program / curriculum; 2) Model of providing resources reference list; 3) Model of setting up dementia health information area; v 4) Model of promoting health information services together or of building a collaborative system or platform.. Finally, two suggestions are important to practice for such collaboration: firstly, librarians are to build a procedure from collecting and organizing resources, then to set up an expert group for evaluation of selected resources; secondly, health professionals are to provide some advices of conducting health information service program for public library.
Subjects
Consumer health information service
public library
dementia caregivers
dementia caretakers
Type
thesis
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ntu-104-R99126011-1.pdf
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