Introduction:

the informal caregiver is a person who performs a series of activities that include feeding, providing medication, mobilization and/or any other assistance action that ensures the patient's functioning in a satisfactory manner, without having, in general, remuneration for the task.

Objective:

to psychosocially characterize informal caregivers of patients with severe motor disabilities admitted to the Rehabilitation Service.

Methods:

an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional research was carried out. The universe was constituted by 23 caregivers of patients with severe motor disability hospitalized in the Rehabilitation Service of the Clinical Surgical Teaching Hospital “Dr. “Dr. León Cuervo Rubio". The sample was selected by means of a non-probabilistic purposive sampling, and the sample consisted of 20 caregivers.

Results:

predominance of informal caregivers aged 46 years or older (80 %). Prevalence of female sex (75 %). High percentage of caregivers with university education (40 %). 25 % of the participants were unemployed, while another 25 % were retired. The majority of caregivers were daughters (45 %). Caregivers who had been caregivers for six months to one year (40 %), but also for one to five years (40 %), were predominant. The presence of psychosomatic diseases stood out; the most frequent health condition being.

Conclusions:

The need for care does not end with the person in need of care, but extends to one of the main concerns of today's society and particularly of the health sciences in the coming decades: caregivers.

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