La resiliencia como factor protector del cuidador informal en la labor del cuidado: Una revisión sistemática cualitativa en salud

Abstract

Ageing can generate a situation of dependency, creating the need for care provided by informal carers, who are important figures in meeting the basic needs of this older population. Informal caregivers are relevant to society because of their care work. Therefore, it is important to focus on their resilience as a protective factor associated with caregiving and to reinforce it with social policies. Objective: To conduct a systematic review to analyse resilience as a protective factor in the health of informal caregivers caring for dependent elderly people.Methods: A systematic review was carried out using the PRISMA approach and the PICO method. A literature search was carried out from March to January 2021 in Pubmed, Web of Science and SCIELO databases. Scientific articles related to resilience associated with informal caregiver health were systematically reviewed based on a set of inclusion criteria. DeCS and MesH descriptors were used with the Boolean operator "AND" and "OR" and keywords such as "care", "informal caregiver", "dependence", "ageing" and "resilience". Results. Initially 936 studies were found. Once the inclusion criteria had been applied, the sample consisted of 9 scientific articles. Resilience is a protective factor associated with the health of the informal caregiver that leads to an increase in both physical and mental quality of life.Conclusions: Caring for the caregiver is important for society to be indirectly strengthened in this arduous task. Research on resilience associated with caregiving is of vital interest at all levels (social, economic, particular) and can be considered as a social strategy to protect the health and well-being of the informal caregiver.