[Interaction of nurses and women caring informally for dependent persons]

To find the attitudes that primary care nurses in Albacete have towards family carers.

Qualitative research using discussion groups.

Primary care in Albacete: 5 health centres, 2 rural and 3 urban.

Nurses following a primary care home visit programme, of both sexes, differing experience and training, and coming from both rural and urban areas took part. Exclusion criterion: nurses in management and administrative posts at time of recruitment. They were recruited by primary care nurses in line with the profiles of participants required.

Information was collected through discussion in the groups, which was recorded and later transcribed for analysis.

Those taking part in the 2 discussion groups had the following characteristics: 3 men and 8 women. 5 of them were from rural health centres (HC) and 6 from urban HC; 3 had under 2 years experience in the Home Visit Programme (HVP) and 8 had over 5 years experience in it; 5 completed their nursing studies before 1990, and 6 afterwards. In the chats it was clear that the broad experience of PC nurses made them aware of the health situation and quality of life of informal carers, of the loneliness of these and the inter-personal conflicts that occur in families when a situation of dependency arises. Nurses had their educational function towards the carers assumed despite the limitations. The view that the responsibility for the care of the dependent person is the family's was predominant, and a concern for lack of resources and support was appreciated. Nurses had a view of the carer as a resource and barely perceived her as a patient.