This thesis was commissioned by a rehabilitation unit of the health care organization in southern Finland. Supporting the wellbeing of the family caregivers and coping relatives’ living at home has been carried out by the short-term institutional care in the rehabilitation unit since 2011. The purpose of this thesis was to find out what kind of experiences family caregivers have of the short-term institutional care, how it has influenced caregivers’ coping and how it could be developed. The thesis serves the healthcare organization’s development efforts.

The short-term institutional care is outside of the home regularly repeated care, which is provided to support informal care. The short-term institutional care has been established as part of the health service system, but its development has received little attention. The short-term institutional care’s effect on caregivers’ well-being has been studied little.

The thesis was carried out a qualitative study. Data was collected by theme interviews, which were carried out individually. Interviewees were ten family caregivers, whose relatives were customers of the short-term institutional care.

Family caregivers have mostly positive experiences of the short-term institutional care. They felt they could rely on their relatives’ treatment. The nursing staff's friendliness, functionality of the co-operation, maintaining of relatives’ functional capacity, and a good basic care were expe-rienced to be relevant.

The short-term institutional care has mainly positive effects on caregivers’ coping. The sufficiency of the short-term institutional care for supporting the caregivers’ coping divided respondents’ opinions. The most important development areas of the short-term institutional care were improving co-operation, increasing the information to caregivers, and increasing relatives’ comprehensive capability to support rehabilitation, outdoor activities and common supervised activities.