[Return of the sick at home: importance of the level of dependency and family support].

Introduction: Although aging is not synonymous with illness and dependency, the process enhances the progressive limitation of the capabilities of the individual to meet daily living activities with autonomy, leading to greater need for informal and / or formal support.

Objectives: To identify the functional independence of the participants and their relation to the socio demographic, clinical, housing and social support variables;to assess the difficulties of informal caregivers in care when returning home.

Method: We opted for a triangulated methodology (quantitative and qualitative) following a descriptive-correlational path, using for this purpose a non-probabilistic sample of convenience consisting of 50 patients admitted in the Centro Hospitalar Tondela - Viseu, EPE, and their informal caregivers. The measuring instruments used were the Barthel Index and a semi-structured interview.

Results: The participants are mostly male, with an average age of 73.7 years, married, residing in rural areas. Their qualifications are the 1st cycle of basic education (four years of Primary School) and have a predominance of cerebrovascular diseases. They show moderate dependence at discharge, preferably returning to their own home. Functional independence is significantly influenced by age, educational attainment, place of residence after admission, housing adaptation and formal support. The informal caregiveris mainly the female spouse and daughters, presenting as main difficulties, employment, lack of support andtechnical assistance, the existence of architectural barriers and caregiver overload.

Conclusions: The inexistent of the caregiver's profile, their absence or inability to care was predictive of institutionalization.