The educational and supportive needs of informal caregivers working at Refentse Clinic, Hammanskraal

Informal caregivers have long been used as health care providers. It is also not uncommon in present days, to see such practice in the community. This practice of caring normally occurs within the context of the family. The purpose of the study is to explore and describe the educational and supportive needs of informal caregivers. This will assist in planning and establishing health education programmes and a supportive network, for the informal caregivers at Refentse clinic, at Hammanskraal. A qualitative, explorative and descriptive design was followed, to collect the data. Participants in this study were informal caregivers, who were involved in Refentse clinic and resided in Stinkwater village. The method of choice, to gather data, was focus groups. An unstructured interview with a schedule was followed. Tesch's method was used, to analyse the data. The results indicated that the informal caregivers' educational needs were mostly concentrated on health promotion and disease prevention activities. Their needs concerning support, mainly concentrated around support from government, the community, the University and the Primary Health Care clinic, in the area where they are serving. Personal needs focussed on recognition and respect.