Introduction:

The familial caregivers question their capacity to care when patients suffer acute decompensations due to their chronic illnesses and require hospitalization in critical patients units. In these situations, it is fundamental to determine the caregiver self-efficacy in organizing and providing care which is effective and allows the prevention of risk-posing behaviors, both from the patients as well as from the patients’ families.

Objective:

To explore the self-efficacy perception of familial caregivers towards the persons in critical status admitted to Critical Patient Units of the ‘‘Dr. Guillermo Grant Benavente de Concepción’’ hospital, as well as the related associations with bio-psycho-social characteristics and morbidity indicators.

Methodology:

This is a quantitative, correlational and trans-sectional study. A Care Self-Efficacy scale, a Self-Esteem scale, and a semi-structured questionnaire were conducted with 97 familial caregivers.

Results:

Self-Efficacy was higher among male caregivers, and statistically significant relations with age, level of studies, self-esteem, knowledge of the treatment, and illness duration were found.

Conclusions:

It was observed that some bio-psycho-social characteristics of the caregiver, as well as some morbidity indicators of the person in critical status, were associated to the caregivers’ perception of their self-efficacy, and to the patients’ strength to adopting health-promoting conducts towards themselves and their families.