Capacidade de autocuidado de cuidadores informais de pessoas idosas com demência : estudo quase experimental

Abstract

Introduction: Dementia is a syndrome of chronic nature and its main characteristic is cognitive decline. The consequences of dementia do not only affect the elderly person, but also the informal caregiver, as care is a daily, repetitive and exhausting activity that can harm the caregiver's care for themselves. The caregiver needs to feel capable of taking care of themselves and needs support for self-care. Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention based on self-efficacy to increase the self-care capacity of informal caregivers of elderly people with dementia. Methodology: This is a quasi-experimental study, with before and after evaluation. The research was carried out in Cuiabá – MT, with 17 informal caregivers of elderly people with dementia treated at the geriatrics outpatient clinic of the Hospital Universitário Júlio Muller (HUJM). The research project was approved by the HUJM Research Ethics Committee, opinion 4,622,301 and registered with ReBEC under number RBR-7gfvn3y. The educational intervention was carried out by telephone in stages: 1) Pre-intervention: data collection for: characterization of caregivers, measures of burden, self-care capacity and perceived self-efficacy; 2) Intervention: divided into four moments, in which participants were sent four videos produced by the researcher herself based on the four sources of self-efficacy beliefs from Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory; 3) Post-intervention: new measure of self-care capacity. The descriptive analysis was presented in tables and graphs, with absolute and relative frequency. Data normality test and graphical presentation with Box-plot were performed. Subsequently, the non-parametric Wilcoxon rank-sum test and paired t test, considered a significance level of 0,05. Results: The majority of caregivers are female (88,2%) and have more than 11 years of education (58,8%), 41,2% are between 50 and 59 years old. Regarding activities as caregivers, 29,4% of them have been caring for the elderly person for a period of 5 to 9 years and another 29,4% have been caring for 10 years or more. The largest number (76,5%) say they receive some type of help with the elderly. The majority of caregivers (70,6%) were classified in the no burden category and had a good score (94,1%) on the perceived self-efficacy measure. An improvement in self-care capacity was noted in the very good (35,3%) and excellent (52,9%) categories post-intervention. In the comparison analysis of the effect of the educational intervention on self-care capacity, an increase in the mean value (102,11) in the post-intervention was found in relation to the mean value in the pre-intervention (95,00), with significance statistics (p=0,029). Conclusion: The self-care capacity of informal caregivers of elderly people with dementia increased after carrying out an educational intervention based on self-efficacy. It is hoped that the results of this research will contribute to increasing scientific knowledge about self-care for informal caregivers.