Informal Caregivers: A Key Element in Rehabilitation

• Autor(a) principal: Reis Lopes Gonçalves, José Vítor; Serviço de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, Centro Hospitalar Vila Nova de Gaia/Espinho, Portugal
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Vilabril, Filipa; Serviço de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação, Centro Hospitalar de Trás os Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal, Pereira, Margarida; Serviço de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, Centro Hospitalar Vila Nova de Gaia / Espinho, Portugal, Santos, Joana; Serviço de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação, Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, Centro Hospitalar Vila Nova de Gaia / Espinho, Portugal
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25759/spmfr.365
• topic: Caregivers; Palliative Care; Rehabilitation; Cuidadores; Cuidados Paliativos; Reabilitação.

Introduction: Informal caregivers are the people who take care of other persons in a chronic, deficiency or dependent situation, partially or totally, temporarily or forever, besides their regular work. There are several functions related to informal caregivers and the act of caring is related to several positive and negative aspects that are important to identify in order to plan and discuss a correct health plan. It is essential that health care professionals know the impact of the act of caring in the caregivers.Methods: The used databases were “Medline”, “PEDro” and “Scielo and the keywords used were “Informal”, “Caregiver”, “Palliative” to conduct a narrative review that obtained 173 articles that were later reduced to 12 articles by analysis and filter utilization. The goal of this work was to make a literature review of consequences of the act of caring in the informal caregivers.Results: From the 12 articles there was not any positive aspect of the act of caring. On the contrary, there were innumerable negative aspects associated with caring. Female caregivers were more affected by the negative effects of caring.Discussion: The act of caring is associated with positives and negatives aspects that are diffused in the literature. However, only the negative aspects were focused on the analysed articles. The bigger impact of the negative aspects and the highest prevalence of female caregivers were also accord to the literature.Conclusion: The increased aging of population is related with a more dependent status and will demand an increase number of caregivers. The act of caring is associated with several positive and negative aspects that should be remembered in order to make the best decisions in health planning. Health professionals should be sensitized to these aspects so they can be able to decrease them and potentiate the support by the caregivers.