Espiritualidade e bem-estar subjetivo em familiares cuidadores de idosos com dependência física

Abstract

Introduction: Population aging is a current and global phenomenon, with social and economic impact, that has generated sequels on health and well-being of individuals, families and communities. The uncertainties resulting from the process of taking care, fear and insecurity in the execution of care giving and changes in social roles, are burden factors for the caregiver. In this context, spirituality is considered an important therapeutic component in health care, especially as a strategy for dealing with situations of internal or external demand, generators of overload and stress. Several studies show that spirituality helps finding meaning and direction to life, and dealing with the uncertainties of the future more effectively. Objectives: To determine whether there is a relationship between spirituality and subjective well-being in family caregivers of older adults with physical dependence; Knowing the levels of spirituality and subjective well-being of family caregivers of elderly people with physical dependence; Evaluate the relationship between sociodemographic variables and life satisfaction, positive affectivity and negative affectivity and spirituality and determine the nature of the relationship between spirituality and subjective well-being in magnitude and orientation. Methods: A quantitative study and an observational, cross-sectional, descriptive correlational. We used a questionnaire consisting of the Satisfaction With Life Scale - PT (Simões, 1992), Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Simões, 1993) and Spiritual Assessment Scale (Rego, 2007), with a non-accidental probabilistic sample. Results: Participants were 103 family caregivers of elderly adults with an average age of 67.75 years, mostly female, and wives in 55.3% of cases. The average life satisfaction was 14:10, the positive affects of 39.19, the negative affects of 29.09 and 72.84 of spirituality. A significant positive correlation between subjective well-being and spirituality and increased level of spirituality and subjective well-being as a function of religiosity family caregivers was observed. Conclusions: These results show the need and responsibility of nurses in spiritual care to patients. The adoption of strategies to promote spiritual well-being should be appropriate whenever it determines a complex response, which is not limited to pharmacological treatment. Interventions are a key to promote high levels of subjective well-being of family caregivers, by promoting spirituality, high levels of satisfaction with life, the promotion of positive affects and the decreased of negative affects will be achieved.

Date of Award	4 Jun 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Helena Maria Guerreiro José (Supervisor) & Cristina Marques-Vieira (Co-Supervisor)