Contextual Elements of Palliative Caregiving in a Low-Income Community

Abstract

Despite the importance of community-based palliative care in South Africa, there is little research on the experiences of formal caregivers in low-income settings, and the contextual challenges they encounter in providing caregiving services. We investigated the ways in which contextual factors affect formal caregivers' experiences of caregiving in a community-based environment. Eleven individual interviews were conducted with participants from a community-based palliative care organisation in Gauteng. The data were considered from an interpretive phenomenological perspective and content analysed into themes that converged around the contextual influences on caregiving experiences. The themes provided insight into how caregivers construct their role in relation to the community they serve, the ways in which stigma and poverty affect their role, and their perceptions of the importance of knowledge within caregiving. The findings suggest that contextual factors are an integral and neglected component of understanding the experience of caregiving.