Caregivers’ experience of the chronically ill in hospital

Abstract

Objective: to know the experiences of caregivers of the chronically ill in hospital. Material and Methods: a qualitative, phenomenological study with 16 caregivers of hospitalized patients in internal medicine at Social Security, involving 13 women and 3 men; the relationship women was: wives, daughters, sisters, all housewives; the men, husband and son. Was conducted through in depth interviews that were recorded prior informed consent. Was analyzed for content and process in Atlas Ti 4.2. Results: the caregivers prevaleiled female middle-age housewives, spend twelve hours care, there were differences in the meaning of the between the wives as they see soon as an obligation and responsibility or correspondence, for these hospital care is half the strange report that caring involves meeting basic needs, security and therapy, they learn by trial and error, by the temporality effects are physiological and psychological well reorganize their daily activities to care. Conclusions: the experience of caring in the hospital is viewed as running form the hospital as a means unknown to the organization of very life to care, it is important to include in the plans for patient care and make visible the contribution.