The experience of family carers of older people in the use of support services in Europe: Selected findings from the EUROFAMCARE project [Erfahrungen von pflegenden angehörigen älterer menschen in Europa bei der inanspruchnahme von unterstützungsleistungen

This article presents selected findings of the EUROFAMCARE research project, reporting up-to-date information on the use and accessibility of support services for family carers of older people in six European countries representing different typologies of welfare systems (Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the UK). Data were collected by means of face-to-face interviews to national samples of about 1000 family carers per country (i.e. 6000 in total), based on a common recruitment and data collection protocol. The reported findings reveal the crossnational usage of different support services - subdivided for comparative reasons in the categories of socio-emotional support, information, respite care, training and assessment services - as well as of available care allowances. The analysis includes the perceived experience of carers in using them, in terms of costs sustained, factors affecting service accessibility - i.e. main obstacles and greatest helps in accessing them - as well as reasons for not using (needed) services or for stopping using (still needed) services. Cross-national differences are relevant, showing a greater availability in Northern European countries, where however higher refusal rates by potential users of available services are recorded, possibly in connection to their lack of flexibility and low customisation. © 2006 Steinkopff-Verlag.