Everyday Life Condition in Stroke Survivors and Their Family Caregivers in Iranian Context

• BackgroundStroke is an unexpected major life incident that effect on physical functioning and can lead tochanges in lifestyle and inability to manage self care, work or leisure. To explore the everydaylife situation as experienced by stroke survivors, and their family caregivers, this study wasconducted 3-6 month after stroke.MethodsTwelve stroke survivors and thirteen family caregivers were interviewed and a qualitativecontent analysis was conducted to analyze data.ResultsThe results were categorized into two central themes that were identified as; (1) Being challengedby changes in everyday life situation including; the struggle with physical dysfunctions,inappropriate daily plan for leisure activities, changes in mood, being faced with economicalproblems and being worried about changing roles (2) striving to cope with new conditionsincluding; trying to preserve self-worth, seeking to support from spirituality, learning andre-learning and regaining independency.ConclusionPhysical dysfunction was the major concern for both the survivors and their family caregiversin their everyday life situation. This problem led to, and forced them, to be dependent on others.Training is needed to teach stroke survivors and their families strategies of how to cope withand overcome ongoing challenges of everyday life after stroke and to re-organize their livesand improve skills of the survivors to deal with the new situation at home.A daily plan for spending their time and leisure activities would ease this work. Moreinvestigation will be needed to clarify the process of life after stroke to cover this gap.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Stroke survivors; Family caregivers; Everyday life; Content analysis

Vårdvetenskap

Caring Science

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)