Apoio social de cuidadores informais de pessoas em cuidados paliativos por câncer

Abstract

The social support for informal caregiver of people in palliative care with cancer is necessary and fundamental to the process of copying with the adversities that are illness consequences, mainly when the closeness of death. In the face of this scenario, the goal of this study was to analyse the social support of the informal caregivers of people with cancer at the IV stage that are in palliative care. It’s a study with mixed approach, done with 45 informal caregivers, registered with a customer service for people with cancer in a south county of Minas Gerais, between November of 2017 and January of 2018. There have been used three instruments: socio-demographic characterization, Social, Medical Outcomes Study support scale and guide with guiding questions. The data that were collected by the researcher on interviews and field journal, done by means of pre-scheduled home visit. After the data collection, the data were analyzed quantitatively by means of a statistical program Pearson’s chi-squared test and Fisher's Exact test to verify the association between informal caregivers' social support with the independent variables, as well as the Cronbach's Alpha and Odds Ratio. Qualitative analysis was performed by Braun and Clarke Thematic Analysis. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Alfenas (064258/2017) It was verified the predominance of female individuals, aged between 36 and 50 years, married / with a partner, Catholic, with monthly family income from two to three minimum wages , complete secondary education, non-smokers and non-alcoholic, that did not engage in physical or recreational activities, and did not work, with a care period of 1.01 to 2 years, an hourly care of up to 5 hours and who lived with the person cared for. There was high overall social level support and the highest average was found in dimension 2 - affective and the lowest in dimension 5 - positive social interaction. It was verified that no independent variable presented statistical association with social support. From the qualitative analysis was built the central theme: Social support for the caregiver in the face of the impotence of cancer and its subtopics: What moves to support; Where the support moves; Perceived and perceived social support. Although the social support perceived by caregivers has been high, caring for a person with stage IV cancer can lead to changes in the caregiver's lifestyle, reduction of social contacts, and abandonment of professional life. On the other hand, assuming the role of caregiver enables people to resignify their lives.