Being A Caregiver In Home Care: Choosing Between The Duty And The Moral Desire Of Taking Care

Abstract Background: to analyze the process of development of the caregiver in a home care program, focusing on the attributes, feeling and needs of those individuals. Methods: regarding our method, we made use of a qualitative research, which has been carried out at the Home Care Service of Belo Horizonte. The data has been collected through interviews performed with all the 7 caregivers and 6 healthcare practitioners. All the info has been analyzed under the scope of the the discourse analysis research method. Results: the caregiver acts with his/her heart, he/she listens and looks very carefully and attentively. Care is characterized by an intense and permanent process of conflict between the duty due to the assingned functions and the moral desisre of taking care of other human beings. Those two dimensions can be expressed sometimes by affection, gratitude and solidarity, but, in other times, it is guided by duty, resulting in work overload and concerns that make the caregiver unique in his/her moral condition. Conclusion: the person in charge of being a caregiver finds himself/herself surrounded by feelings and responsibilities, in a heavy load of relationships that are shaped by the subjective and subjectfying experiences, which makes critical the implementation of supportive social networks to aid the caregivers. keywords: Caregiver; Home Care Services; Home Care.