Barreras y facilitadores en el cuidado de personas mayores dependientes: una visión desde los cuidadores informales en la atención primaria

Objective

Describe barriers and facilitators in care perceived by informal caregivers of older adults with moderate and severe functional dependence on primary care.

Design

Qualitative descriptive research.

Setting

Family Health Center located in Santiago, Chile.

Participants

Informal caregivers of older people (n = 12) users of the care program for people with severe functional dependence on the Family Health Center.

Method

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the informal caregivers. Conventional content analysis was used to identify and define the main themes.

Results

From the twelve interviews carried out, various categories and subcategories emerged: 1) Care facilitators: support networks, sharing experience, the importance of love and affection in the care process, coping mechanisms of the caregiver, and self-learning. 2) Care barriers: dissatisfaction with the quality of care from the health system, lack of support from the networks, older adults’ greater degree of functional dependence, lack of tolerance of the informal caregiver, challenging behaviors of the functionally dependent older adult, and fear of delegating care.

Conclusions

This study shows the variety of experiences and challenges shared by informal caregivers when providing care to functionally dependent older people, which may contribute to the development of intersectorial policies to address it.