Elder orphans' experiences of advance planning and informal support network

Sandra Thaggard, Jed Montayre

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Literature reviews on elder orphans recommended the need of an in-depth exploration of health care and social issues from their actual experiences. This article explores the experiences of elder orphans living independently in the community on their own with no immediate or close family support. The study utilized a qualitative descriptive approach through face-to-face interviews. Two main themes emerged from the data. The first theme was "advance plans" with the subthemes (a) my to-do list and (b) the right timing. The second theme identified was "informal support network" with the subthemes (a) family is right here and (b) familiarized support system. These findings offered insights on how existing informal networks influence elder orphans' consideration for advance directives in terms of timing. Moreover, the findings have identified the extent of which informal support network has been received by elder orphans. Currently, the support threshold of these informal networks is unknown, which warrants further research.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages6
JournalSage Open
Volume9
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Open Access - Access Right Statement

Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Keywords

  • New Zealand
  • nursing
  • psychology

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