[Motives and perceptions of family care for dependent elderly].

Objective: To identify and analyze the motives that lead people to take care of a dependent relative and their perceptions of the care situation.

Design: Phenomenological qualitative study.

Location: The study was conducted in the Jaén-Norte Sanitary District, during 2013 and 2014.

Participants: A total of 13 primary caregivers of dependent elderly relatives with a minimum experience of one year in care participated, selected by intentional sampling.

Method: Discourse analysis of 13 in-depth interviews considering the semantic and pragmatic content and field notes. Triangulation was performed in the analysis to favor the credibility of the study.

Results: The motives for caring for a dependent relative are:'Familism','Material gains' and'Social pressure'. In turn, the'Familism' include 7 dimensions/motives:'Family obligation','Affection to the person taken care of','Return the received','Well-being of the person taken care of','Respect to the decision of the person taken care of','Agreement','Habit'. When the main motive to take care of is the'Family obligation', the'Material gains' or the'Social pressure' caregivers do not manifest positive perceptions for caring, and vice versa.

Conclusion: This study has identified that'Familism','Material gains' and'Social pressure' are reasons why people care for a dependent relative in our sociocultural environment, as well as the relationship with the perception of the care situation. This will facilitate the identification of caregivers with greater predisposition to suffer negative consequences for caring and the development of interventions aimed at the prevention of such consequences.