Abstract

Social organization mainly designates women as the informal caregivers, and there is an invisibilization of how this milestone is constructed in everyday life, which makes them the predominant caregiving social subject. Within this framework, the article aims to understand the narratives linked to the decision to initiate informal caregiving among women who care for dependent persons. A research was conducted from an interpretative epistemological perspective, descriptive, qualitative and narrative approach, defining as participants 13 informal caregivers who were interviewed individually. The results show narratives that respond to prescribed, canonical and relational ways of describing the milestone of the beginning of caregiving. It is concluded that the decision to care would be framed in a kind of designation generated by (self-)ascribed mandate, presenting three remarkable profiles: the decision without autonomy, the decision in conditions of ambivalence/ contradiction and the decision influenced by the family, community and health system.