ANEXOS

Abstract

One of the marks of the XXI century is aging population. As a result of this increase in longevity, chronic diseases and / or degenerative changes, typical of old age, have also increased. These incapacitating diseases lead to long-term domestic care for the elderly. Upon this background, the informal caregiver will have the responsibility of caring for and taking part in all the activities that will ensure comfort and well being to the incapacitated member of the family. As the task of the informal caregiver becomes more demanding, it is possible that they will show symptoms of overload, either objective or subjective. In this way, the aim of our study was to understand the relationships between overloads, either objective or subjective, and psychopathological symptoms that appear in the caregivers, using a sample of 30 informal caregivers. They have taken part of semi-structured interviews and replied to the following instruments: Questionnaire for the evaluation of surcharge of Informal Caretaker-; Inventory of psychopathological symptoms and Scale of Social Provisions. The main results of this research have shown that emotional overload affects the mental health of informal caregivers, especially depression and anxiety, but also on the sensitivity of human relationships and personal hostilities. In relation to kind, it was found that females exhibit higher levels of psychopathological symptoms as compared with male caregivers, namely somatization and compulsion-obsession. Although it did not appear associated to overload, results show that the perception of social support is connected in a positive way to psycho-symptomatology. So, we noticed on the participating group, that female informal caregivers show higher levels of psychopathological symptoms. The results of this study suggest the need for the intervention of health professionals, so that this part of the population may enjoy high levels of health, well-being and quality of life.