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Abstract

Descriptive cross-sectional study which uses self-administered surveys to evaluate the data from three independent samples: professionals, relatives of users of the tracking device and relatives of users who do no use it. Methods: specific survey for 30 professionals. For 7 relatives of users who make use of the device: Quebec survey (QUEST 2.0), Zarit scale and caregiver strain index. For 7 relatives of users who do not make use of the device: Zarit Scale and caregiver strain index. Results: 20% of the professionals are aware of the existence of some kind of gps device, only 13.3% can specify the sort of gps. The benefits with the highest score in the Liker scale from 0 to 5 are the tranquillity of the family (4.60), followed by the need of information (4.46), and the item with the lowest score is the tranquillity of the user (3.79). Among those patients carrying a tracking device, 85.71% are men, whereas this percentage turns to a 71,43% among those who do not carry a tracking device. The burden degree of caregivers is an average of 77.86% in those who do not use a tracking device, whereas it goes down to 66.58% in those who do. Caregivers using the tracking device get a 57.1% of greater burden, and a 14.3% of minimum burden. Caregivers who do not use the tracking device get a 100% of greater burden. In the strain index test the results show that a 92.9% of caregivers reach high levels of burden, whereas for 7.1% there was no strain at all. 84.6% of caregivers are women. Conclusions: professionals do not know the tracking device, and the burden of caregivers decreases when they use it. The use of the tracking device should be discussed in an ethical debate by professionals of all areas and relatives of patients.