Introduction:

Currently, home care services have expanded, making it necessary for some family member become the caregiver. Thus, it is relevant to understand the self-care practices of the family caregivers within the home care context.

Materials and Methods:

This was a qualitative research, inserted in the post-structuralist approach. The research had the participation of 18 family caregivers of patients with chronic or terminal disease linked to the home care service of a hospital in southern Brazil. Information was produced through a narrative interview, conducted between July 2015 and March 2016. Participants were interviewed during three weekly meetings. The analysis consisted of questions elaborated regarding the information produced articulated with Foucauldian theorizations on self-care, power relations, and discourse.

Results and Discussion:

Two categories were created: constitution of the caregiver subject: what are the discourses crossing it? and self-care practices as re-signification path to care. The self-care practices were configured as a way of accessing the truth, characterized as the guiding thread of self-care, leading caregivers, in their most diverse ways of being, to subjectivate and reconstitute themselves, through themselves and another.

Conclusions:

Being family caregivers is surrounded by diverse discourses that go through their way of caring and that their self-care practices have been configured as a way of accessing the truth.

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