Background:

falls in the elderly may result in injuries, namely proximal femur fracture (PFF), which leads to surgical intervention. Most elderly people, in the postoperative period, show a compromise in the performance of activities of daily living, which requires the intervention of a family caregiver (FC).

Objectives:

to know how nurses identify FC of the elderly with PFF; to analyze nurses’ perceptions of the assessment of the FC potential to provide care; to identify the process of preparing the FC for the return home.

Methodology:

exploratory qualitative study through semi-structured interviews with 21 nurses of an Orthopedics service of a hospital in Portugal. Bardin's content analysis was used to analyze the data obtained.

Results:

regarding how nurses identify the FC, the most prevalent category was "Elderly" (62%). As for the assessment of the FC potential for care, the most prevalent categories were "Informal" (38%) and "Nonexistent" (33%). In the domain of the FC preparation process, the category "Teaching" emerged.

Conclusion:

the results obtained justify the need for the existence of nursing programs to support the FC of older adults with FPF.