Corona Virus Pandemic and Social Isolation Process Influences on Increased Violence Against Women

Introduction: violence against women is a complex worldwide health problem due to its multicausality. Global background alterations resulting from Corona Virus (Sars-Cov 2) pandemic implicated on the exacerbation of many vulnerabilities, including those that predispose domestic violence. Nowadays this kind of violence is even more intense and reaches significant national and worldwide morbimortality proportions among women. Objectives: to synthetize data described in the literature regarding how the Covid-19 pandemic and social isolation process have affected women lives concerning domestic violence. Methodology: integrative literature review, using a high sensitivity search in the databases Pubmed, Cochrane, Embase and the Virtual Library of Health (VLH) on Dec 07 2020. Ten studies were included in this review. Results: 90% of the studies analyzed presented an increase in intensity and frequency of violence against women after the beginning of social distancing policies. Women that had already suffered any kind of violence before the beginning of the isolation policies are more propense to physical violence during reclusion. Pandemic reduced contact of these women with their informal support network and with health services, culminating in the enhancement of the gravity of cases that are assisted by the system. Conclusion: women are a highly vulnerable population to violence during the pandemic period. Public policies that qualify professionals and facilitate prevention, tracking and intervention of cases are even more necessary.

THE DO IT MYSELF VILLAGE: BUILDING A VILLAGE-LIKE SUPPORT SYSTEM WITHOUT A VILLAGE

Villages provide members with a wide range of support including socialization, vetted vendors and other services that assist the elder to age in place. While not every Village offers the same types of support many older adults join Villages to gain benefits they may have lost (such as an informal support network) or ones they cannot find (such as identifying reliable providers of home repair). However, Villages are not available everywhere and there are barriers to Village membership, especially cost. Do older adults without access to a Village simply “do without” or do some of them create the same type of support system on their own? This presentation, using data collected in focus groups and individual interviews for a study of aging in community will describe the ways in which older adults have fashioned their own set of services and socialization opportunities to achieve the same goals as Village membership.

Elder Orphans’ Experiences of Advance Planning and Informal Support Network

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.

Paradise Transplanted

This article tells the story of a central Los Angeles community garden and the women, who came primarily from Southern Mexico and Central America, who had plots there. The garden fostered an informal support network for the women and families who used it, and a place to grow food and flowers common in their home communities but not found in Los Angeles. The essay then traces the upheaval the followed a local nonprofit’s takeover of, and investment in, the garden.

The roles and functions of the informal support networks of older people who receive formal support: a Swedish qualitative study

Several studies of frail older people have focused on the relationship between formal and informal care, while others have examined the character of inter-generational relationships. Yet knowledge of the significance of the informal-support networks of older people who receive formal care is still scarce. The aim of this paper was to explore how older Swedes who receive formal elder-care experienced their informal support networks. The findings presented emanate from a qualitative case study. The structural, interaction and functional dimensions of the support networks were the main analytical tools. In the study population, the size of the formal support network varied from one to 12 people (or categories of people), and the size of the informal support network varied from one to six people (or categories of people). The main results demonstrate the importance of informal support with reciprocal relationships, and the value of confidants and emotional support, both of which contribute to feelings of belonging, security and wellbeing. A well-functioning formal and informal support network allows individuals to maintain autonomy in old age, even when they have to depend on help from others.

Social networks, ethnicity and public home-care utilisation

This article examines the relationships between support networks, ethnicity and the utilisation of formal care services, taking into account background characteristics and functional health status among 3,403 older people in Israel. Data were drawn from a national survey in 1997 of people aged 60 or more years. The outcome variable was the use of publicly-financed personal care or homemaking services. About 15 per cent of the study population made use of such home care. Six informal support network constellations were identified by applying cluster analysis to key criterion variables that reflect the inter-personal milieu. The resultant network types were: community-clan, family-focused, diverse, friend-focused, neighbour-focused, and restricted networks. Binary logistic regression revealed that the use of formal home-care services was significantly associated with a respondent's age, gender, functional level and informal support network type (Nagelkerke R2=0.39). No association was found between home-care utilisation and a respondent's ethnicity (Arab, Jew, and new Russian immigrant), income or education. The results show that publicly-financed formal care services were utilised more frequently by older-old persons, women, functionally impaired individuals and people embedded in the neighbour-focused and restricted networks (and to a lesser degree, in the diverse and friend-focused networks). Neighbour-focused and restricted network types were characterised by fewer informal support resources at their disposal than the other types. Thus, formal home care was sought more often in cases in which the informal sources of support had less capacity to provide ongoing informal care.

L'orientation et le contenu des relations réciproques des personnes âgées

If many efforts have been undertaken by the scientific community in the last years to better understand the interactions between seniors and their informal support network, understanding of their reciprocal relations remain incomplete. In a context of “young” and “old,” where the later group is becoming larger, coexist longer because of increased life expectancy, and where the redistribution of public resources seems to favour seniors, the private inter-generation solidarity takes on considerable importance. These solidarities are especially expressed by helping each other, and this varies depending on the actors involved. This article attempts to describe the orientation and the content of the reciprocal relationships of seniors and to identify the principal determinants of such relations in Quebec. The data come from the Survey of Aging and Independence study undertaken by Statistics Canada in 1991. The results show that about two out of five seniors have this type of relationship and most often with their spouse. For individuals who no longer have a spouse, children, and particularly a daughter become privileged partners. This study also shows that exchanges of help with friends and/or neighbours prove to be essential when seniors live alone. These actors could even become essential in the future for the upholding of the autonomy of these “grandpa-boomers” who are less well surrounded in later life in terms of descendants than the seniors of today. Finally, very old men with small incomes, living alone in an urban setting and with few or no surviving children are the least likely to experience reciprocity with their entourage.

Informal and Formal Care: Exploring the Complementarity

ABSTRACTAlthough several authors have speculated about the type of relationship between informal and formal care, relatively little empirical work directly examines the interface between the two support systems. This paper examines the correlates of using neither system, only one system and several combinations of both systems. It explores the characteristics of those who do and do not make complementary use of both systems and under what circumstances the two systems are complementary. Multivariate analyses are performed, using logistic regression analyses, to examine the correlates of the different sources of support. Analyses demonstrate that those who utilize the formal care system do so while retaining care from the informal network. Use of the formal system in conjunction with informal care appears to take place in two instances:when seniors are in need and critical elements of their informal network are lacking, or when they have an intact informal support network, but their health needs are extremely high. In both of these instances the formal system enters to assist the informal network. The data point to the complementarity of the two care systems, not in terms of task specificity, but rather, in terms of a sharing of overall task load.