Institucionalização do idoso

: a perspetiva da família

Abstract

Introduction: Palliative care has its goal on the improvement of life’s quality in patients with chronic and incurable diseases making the associated loss process affect the elder and his family too. Yet, society it’s demanding with the elder’s care, family’s responsibility, but will not recognize legally the caregivers and it’s ineffective in satisfying the needs of the elder, promoting the reality of institutionalization. So, it’s important to know the families, their relations, dynamics, affections, decisions and feelings, because they shape the elder’s needs and influence the adaptation to institutionalization. The study focus is in the elder’s institutionalization phenomenon in the family’s perspective and aims to comprehend the families’ opinion about this process. Methodology: This is a qualitative research, uses interviews semi-structured for data collection. Data was analyzed using content analysis based on Bardin’s approach. The participants were chosen for being the significant caregivers in the elder’s opinion, and where determined by data’s saturation. All fundamental rights of human investigation were respected and all the participants gave their free and informed consent, knowing that at any time they could leave the study with no consequences. Results: From the inductive analyses of the data emerged seven subcategories and three categories: Decision determinants, Institution determinants, family’s repercussions and a central theme that was named Elder’s Institutionalization. Conclusions: The elder’s institutionalization are determined by the: family’s or elder’s decision, choosing the institution and integration of the family in the institution. This process has repercussions in the family during the decision, the reencounter and social life.

Date of Award	10 Feb 2016
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Helena Maria Guerreiro José (Supervisor) & Manuel Luís Capelas (Co-Supervisor)