Caregiver Stress Survey
Caregivers can be stressed out for many reasons. An elderly parent’s health may be getting worse, or family relationships may be challenging. This caregiver stress survey can help you
identify habits or styles you have for dealing with family members or the care of an aging parent.
The nine questions in this caregiver stress survey might help you realize aspects of your life that are creating expectations or challenges around aspects of caring for an elderly parent.
1 Does pleasing others or wanting to be happy come before your needs?
Are you giving so much to others that you have created a gaping hole in your life where happiness, joy, relationships, and self-fulfillment used to live?
Think of pleasing others and wanting others to be happy, like filling up a cup. If filling up another person’s cup empties your cup because you are trading parts of your life, then your life is not balanced.
You can empty your cup of time by being inattentive at a job that financially supports you and your family, ignoring your husband or wife or children, not making time for your health by missing doctor appointments for regular check-ups or preventative care, missing gym workouts, not getting enough sleep, or allowing stress to turn you into a junk food junkie.
Stress is a major contributor to overeating. The body wants comfort food and wants it now. How do you know the difference? How often are you so involved in a project or work that you forget to eat for the better part of a day?
Then, on a day when you are dealing with stressful events, the entire day you crave cookies, donuts, chips, fried foods, alcohol, a cigarette, or other things you know are not good for you. Then, after you eat, drink, or smoke, you feel bad about yourself for not having more self-control.
Caregivers who deprioritize their lives, things, and people that have meaning more often live lives of stress and chaos. As you take this caregiver stress survey, consider sharing your responses with others in your family and have them take the test.
Is the stress of being a caregiver resulting in you giving so much to others that you have neglected your needs?
Offer this article as a family caregiver survey so everyone can identify stress in their life, even if they are not the caregiver. By sharing responses, family members may realize that caring for an aging parent is time-consuming and stressful.
Talking about results from this caregiver stress survey may open the door for productive family discussions around caring for an elderly parent.
2 How are you overscheduling yourself?
Is your brain scattered, frantic, or anxious, making it difficult to focus, remember information, or plan? Do you feel like you are drowning in responsibility? Is it difficult to keep up because you say yes to too many things, or you do not realize how long it takes to accomplish a task?
Setting boundaries to protect mental states and physical activities is part of living a balanced life, rather than always running behind. Taking this caregiver self-assessment may help you see responsibilities to care for an elderly parent in a different way.
Overscheduling can result in chronic stress that translates to physical and mental health challenges. It’s important to notice when you feel stressed by assessing the situation and the moment when you feel stress rising.
Notice things that stress and calm you. How can you calm your mind and emotions to be steady in the midst of chaos? Is it listening to music, taking off your shoes to feel grass between your toes, or meditating? Use whatever works for you to calm your mind.
Then, schedule time to list everything you think you must do. Prioritize time-sensitive or important things and deprioritize unnecessary things. Ask for help to set priorities if you are unsure.
Each time another project or task request is made, ask what other projects or tasks take a lower priority. By evaluating each question in this caregiver stress survey, you can
make progress to a more balanced life.3 Do you feel obligated to continue to say yes to family, work, or personal requests for your time?
While it can be uncomfortable saying “no” to help another person under any circumstances, to manage and control your time and mental state, it is essential to look at your schedule for all the things you must do in all areas of your life.
It’s not possible or practical to keep adding tasks when the time for the tasks exceeds the available time. This is simple math.
Create an hour-by-hour calendar for each day of the week to see your time commitments. How many hours are needed for sleep, showering or bathing, dressing, getting ready for the day, time for meals, time at work, and other things?
If you plan and track your time hourly daily, you will see why you cannot continue saying yes. You will also gain more control over your time and commitments. Evaluate and assess each request for help before you say yes.
Caregiver Self-Inventory: 9 Questions to Assess Your Caregiving Style
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4 Must you lead or be in control, or can you be part of a team?
Most caregivers start helping and never involve or ask other family members for help. This sets up an eventual unrealistic expectation that this person, the caregiver, will continue to do everything.
Maybe you prefer being in control because it is easier for you. You don’t have to ask for the opinions of anyone else, and no one is monitoring your activities.
One day, when being a caregiver has overtaken your life, you may think differently. This caregiver assessment can help you look at caregiving responsibilities that must be completed individually or that can be shared within the family.
If you feel overwhelmed, give up control and start asking others for help. Tell your husband, wife, mom, or dad you cannot do it all the work anymore. There’s nothing wrong with being honest and expressing your feelings. Making your needs known can be liberating.
If elderly parents have the money to pay for care, use that money to pay for care. Ask siblings and family members to help. If there is no money or money will run out, start planning for Medicaid at least 3 to 5 years in advance.
Assess your parents’ health and financial situation so you can make a plan and reduce stress in your life.
5 Have you made yourself indispensable?
Caregivers who make themselves indispensable may desire attention or want to feel important. This happens when the caregiver always receives the phone call from mom, dad, or someone in the family asking for help.
The challenge with being indispensable is that someday you may want your time back. Receiving calls, emails, and texts at all hours of the day eventually becomes exhausting.
Don’t risk your health or your sanity by setting expectations or high standards that have no “time frame.” For example, I can help for 3 months, then we must look at other options.
By creating a list and surveying your care responsibilities, you can identify tasks only you can do versus tasks that can be done by other family members or hired out. No one can be indispensable forever. Caregiving tasks eventually take a toll on a caregiver’s health and well-being.
6 Do you disappoint others when you commit to doing something and then back out because you are overwhelmed or exhausted?
What makes you feel like you must carry the weight of the world or the problems of others by taking on too many responsibilities that overwhelm you? If the people you commit to are important to you, start managing your time and your commitments.
The suggestion in the caregiver stress survey question three about creating an hourly schedule and a monthly calendar may help you decide what you can commit to and when you must say no. Assessing your time is an important aspect of creating balance in life.
7 Do you feel angry or resentful because others don’t acknowledge or appreciate your efforts?
If you do what you do to impress others or seek attention, are you doing caregiving work for the wrong reason? Some children who did not have good relationships with their parents when they were young can fall into this pattern of seeking parental approval or appreciation.
The only person who must appreciate you is you. You do not need anyone’s approval to be happy or feel good about yourself.
When you take responsibility for your life and allow others to do the same, you will have more time for yourself. You will not have to be resentful about giving too much time to others. You will have
more time to spend with your spouse or others you love.
Work with your elderly parent to assess their needs. Then help them look at other options, besides you, to fulfill daily and ongoing needs.
8 Are you constantly trying to fix things, people, or situations beyond your control?
The way that people react to situations is based on their life experiences. Do you feel that your life is out of control, such that you want to organize the lives of others and make them better?
If so, pay attention to your life and the things that feel out of control, rather than fixing other people.
While we can want good things for others, others must want the same and commit to doing the work. No one can make anyone else do anything.
If you care for someone sick, you may want them to take their medication, eat better, or exercise.
Unless they are motivated to do these activities for themselves, it will not happen.
Instead of fixing others, ask yourself, How can I improve my life? What things can I do for myself? What might I need to work on or change?
Everyone has a list of things they want to do that they never seem to get to.
Why not make a list and start today? Asses the things you do for others versus the things you do for yourself. If the list is lopsided, start adding more to the list of things you do for yourself and subtracting things you do for others.
9 Do you rush to solve problems? Do you constantly react to outside circumstances?
Rushing to solve problems and reacting to outside events can happen in caregiving, work, or personal life. Whose problems are you solving? Yours or others?
Use this caregiver stress survey to identify habits you have around reacting to unexpected circumstances. Do you immediately become hypervigilant or stressed? Do your emotions go off the charts?
Change the dynamic by not jumping into solving the problems of other people. Why not let them solve their problems or be supportive of their actions in helping them research information and identify options?
Researching information can be an area where elderly parents need a little help. Talk about what information they need to evaluate options and solve a problem, and then work with them.
Do not do all the work. Help elderly parents get the information they need so that they can decide. When there is a problem to solve, the more involved your parents are, the more likely they will be interested in solving the problem and making their own choice.
Constantly reacting to outside circumstances can be
emotionally exhausting. If you constantly react, can you identify what event or issue triggers your response? Write down the events that precede your emotional spikes.
For example, does mom or dad call you at work, and you never say, “I can’t talk now, let me call you back after work”
Instead, you listen to their complaints for 20 minutes, which means you must work another 20 minutes before you leave, or the time on the phone makes you late for another commitment.
Choose how you react. If something sets you off, stop, pause, and think before responding, or say, “I need to think about that. Let me get back to you tomorrow.”
If you can put distance between an automatic reaction and a response, you will have more time to think about the best response to constantly changing situations or environments.
Identifying stress related to caregiving responsibilities by taking this caregiver stress survey and sharing it with other family members can help you start to rebalance your life.
Looking For Help Caring for Elderly Parents? Find the Information, Including Step-by-Step Processes, in Pamela’s Online Program.
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