Abstract

BANCHERO, Serrana  and  MIHOFF, Mariángeles. Elderly caregivers: excessive burden and affective dimension. Psicol. Conoc. Soc. [online]. 2017, vol.7, n.1, pp.7-35.  Epub May 31, 2017. ISSN 1688-7026.

This article explores the relationship between the excessive burden of caregivers and the affective dimension of care in elderly caregivers. At present, care is treated as a public social problem, and therefore subject to public policy. Uruguay is an aged country due to the sociodemographic changes that have occurred, which has resulted in an increase of dependency situations and demands of care. Thus, elderly adults are not only receivers but also providers of care. Care involves a material, economic and affective dimension, and because of their task of caring, caregivers may experience the syndrome of excessive burden. It is a qualitative-quantitative design and consist of a case study has been done through individual interviews with the application of instruments according to a categorization in the sample, which is conformed by ‘elderly caregivers’ and ‘not caregivers’. It will analyze the excessive burden caregiver’s variable with the characteristics of the relationship caregiver-care. The sample is finalist and was integrated by 74 elderly regular users of Subprograma Adultos Mayores del Programa Apex-Cerro (UdelaR) in Montevideo city, Uruguay. The results have shown that a totalizing vision of care appears as well as self-referential stories. 29,7 percent are elderly caregivers, among which 15,7 percent presents the excessive burden caregivers syndrome (all of them women with a median age of 65.5 years). In the analysis of the affective dimension of care, characteristics of a type of co-dependent relationship between the caregiver and care are observed.

Keywords : elderly caregivers; burden; codependency.

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