CARING ABILITY OF FAMILY CAREGIVERS OF CHRONICALLY DISEASED PEOPLE

Aim: To describe and to compare the abilities of family caregivers dealing with chronically ill persons belonging to teaching-medical care programs, in three Nursing schools, within the “Chronic patient and his family” working network.Materials and methods: A transversal comparison of descriptive and quantitative studies was adapted as methodology. Forty five caregivers from Universidad Nacional de Colombia were sampled. The research material was the Caring Ability Inventory (CAI) by Ngozi Nkongho. Results: At the end of the study, similar abilities were found in the caregivers of the three institutions. Those results confirm the literature findings since the caring ability is deficient in all cases. Conclusions: It would be convenient to include in the social welfare policies and the academic curricula programs to prepare the nursing professionals to deal with the cares provided to chronically ill patients.