The influence of the cardiac surgery patientʹs sex and age on care-giving received

Care-giving research has predominantly focused on the care-givers of those with long-term illness and the elderly. Little attention has been given to examining care-giving from the perspective of the person receiving the care, differentiating how the sex or age of the person may influence the care received, or examining care-giving in the context of shorter term situations where the patient is expected to recover. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics of the informal care-givers of cardiac surgery patients from three hospitals in one Canadian province and the effect of patient characteristics (sex, age) on their experience of receiving that care. A prospective, non-randomized design, was used to examine the short-term recovery from cardiac surgery of 120 subjects (60 men, 60 women). Patients were interviewed preoperatively and then at monthly intervals through the third postoperative month.