Context:

The process of deinstitutionalization of the person with serious mental illness brought a new reality by requiring an adaptation of families, given the need for their members to assume the role of informal caregivers.

Objective:

To identify the difficulties of informal caregivers of people with severe mental illness.

Methodology:

A descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study was carried out. A simple random probabilistic sample of 27 informal caregivers of an adult person with severe mental illness was constituted, accompanied in the outpatient psychiatric clinic of a hospital in the south of Portugal. As a data collection instrument, the Caregiver's Difficulties Assessment Index (CADI) and a sociodemographic characterization questionnaire of the informal caregiver, were applied.

Results:

Regarding the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants, it was found that these are in line with the profile that characterizes informal caregivers in Portugal. From the application of the CADI, it appears that the factors in which there were more difficulties related to care were factors related to the lack of family support, financial problems, followed by reactions to the provision of care and the lack of professional support.

Conclusions:

The role of caring causes difficulties for the caregiver, who is faced with a different context than usual and having to play a new role. Thus, we found that family caregivers constitute a group with specific needs and difficulties, in view of which the Specialist Nurse Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing has a fundamental role in terms of intervention, in the training and empowerment of those who care.

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