Introduction:

Caregivers of people with chronic disease adopt a new role that may involve responses such as anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

Objective:

To describe and correlate the variables of adoption of the role of caregiver, depression, anxiety and loneliness in family caregivers of people with chronic disease in the Guanentina province in San Gil, Santander (Colombia), during the year 2021.

Methods:

Descriptive study, cross-sectional analysis carried out with 112 family caregivers of people with chronic diseases. A characterization sheet and the ROL, UCLA and HADS instruments were used.

Results:

the profile of the caregivers was predominantly female and average age of 49 years; married, single or in civil union; maximum degree of high school education; of household occupation and low and low-middle socioeconomic level. High levels of anxiety were found in 18,3% of them, depression in 4,3% and loneliness in 0,9%, in addition, satisfactory levels of adoption of the caregiver role were evidenced in 100%. A weak correlation was found between anxiety, depression and loneliness and an inverse correlation between these variables with the adoption of the caregiver role. Similarly, a direct correlation was found between the patient's age and the months of diagnosis with the hours of care per day. Finally, anxiety and depression were found to be predictive of role adoption, of anxiety and role adoption on depression, and of loneliness and depression on anxiety. Conclusions: the caregivers had normal levels of anxiety, depression and loneliness that, when correlated with each other and with the adoption of the caregiver role, validate the idea that, if caregivers are intervened in their trajectory with guidance on their role in terms of the tasks, the organization and the answers can contribute in the reduction of anxiety, depression and loneliness.

Discussion:

The direct connection observed between loneliness, depression and anxiety is consistent with what has been reported in previous studies with caregivers. In accordance with what has been reported in the literature, satisfactory performance of the role facilitates the outcomes in caregivers, in this case, the moderation of anxiety, depression and loneliness.