A careful look at the family caregiver's practice

Abstract

This is a descriptive-exploratory study of family caregivers of patients enrolled in the Home Care Department of a Medical Cooperative in the interior of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, to check the difficulties faced in giving care and suggest issues and activities to improve the care given and quality of life. The caregivers, most of them women aged 60 to 70, expressed signs of an overload of activities, such as body pain, sleeplessness and depression. The data may inform care giving proposals in order to provide better quality of life and care given to the patients.