Caregiver’s characteristics of disability elderly cared by home-teams of the National Network of Integrated Care in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley: cross-sectional study

• Autor(a) principal: Broeiro-Gonçalves, Paula
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25758/set.1711
• topic: Envelhecimento no lugar; Visita domiciliária; Cuidador; Telemóvel; Computador; Aging in place; Home visit; Caregiver; Cell phones; Computer

Introduction – Successful aging in place depends on the informal caregiver. The caregiver is the critical element in care, we have therefore characterized: caregivers and the association between caregiver characteristics and the time of care and their burden. Methodology – Cross-sectional study, a sample size of 230 participants spread over 25 integrated continued care teams randomly selected. Data collection occurred by interviewing the caregiver, through a semi‑structured questionnaire, at the patient’s home. We proceeded to the data description and analysis (chi-square and Spearman correlation). Results – The mean age of caregivers was 66.46 years. Ninety-seven caregivers (42.1%) were of working age (18 to 64 years). Two hundred and twenty-six (98%) were family members, predominantly spouses or children, and less than half (47%) provide technological care. There was a negative tendency of association between caregiver burden and self-perception of health status and caring satisfaction. Telephone access to professionals was valued by the majority (85.7%) of caregivers and having the majority (88.3%) a mobile phone and less than half (40.4%) a computer. Discussion – Elderly caring is female, familiar (spouses and children), and aged 65 years or over. The number of active-aged caregivers in which more than half do not work is a social and economic issue that merits reflection. The subjective caregiver burden was inversely associated with caring satisfaction and the self-perception of health status. Hours of formal care seem to be an economic indicator and not a need for care. Some relevant results were the association between caregiver’s scholar level and the technological care and the information and communication technologies use.