Objective:

To characterize the family caregiver of the person diagnosed with schizophrenia previous admission to the third level of hospitalization in order to contextualize him disciplinarily according to the framework of existing public health policies.

Materials and methods:

Study with descriptive scope, mixed method design and explanatory sequential strategy with a quantitative - qualitative sequence. The sample was selected at convenience, formed of 16 family caregivers who took the sociodemographic, occupational characterization survey and the Zarit test.

Results:

Most of the caregivers are mothers (50%), who have sometimes limited their comprehensive development to carry out their caregiver role. There is a relationship between the age of family caregivers (40-60 years old, the most frequent variable, 56.25%) and the presence of tiredness (37.5% of the population present intense overload, 37.5% absence of overload, and 25% of the population light overload). The accounts show greater vulnerabilities in caregivers.

Conclusions:

The analysis of the results in the context of the current public health confirms the need to approach the mental health and social coexistence dimensions with a population focus, allowing a better understanding of the vulnerability of the family caregiver of the patient diagnosed with schizophrenia. Nurses’ concepts, language, tools and diagnoses achieve total confluence with the guidelines of approaches and models of public health in Colombia, an effective way in nurses to lead the management assuming the challenges in mental health from the primary health care.

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