Caring for and Living with Spouses with Strokes

Abstract

Stroke is the leading cause of disability worldwide and the second most common cause of death (Donnan et al., 2008). A majority of stroke survivors (SS) return to a home setting with family caregivers after being discharged from a hospital (Dorsey & Vaca, 1998). Therefore, the role of the family caregiver, often the spouse of the SS (Wilkinson et al., 1997), is deemed critical in maintaining the SS in the community. Despite the potential suffering and great responsibilities of the caregivers, especially in the case of older spousal caregivers, many of them are still willing to take this caregiving role. Therefore, the examination of the factors that motivate and influence the caregiving behaviours is a vital issue to study in the area of stroke rehabilitation. However, there is limited research that has examined the specific motivations that underlie the provision of care. Therefore, it is worthwhile to focus on studying the motivation of caregiving among older couples after stroke. A qualitative research approach with long interview method is adopted in this study. The data collection method in this study is multiple face-to-face interviews. Findings address the motivation for caregiving in spousal relationship for SS, with clinical implications for development of practice strategies, education, training, and research in the field of stroke health-care. The study also provided contribution to the conceptual framework based on Feeney and Collins (2003) in order to provide better understanding to the spousal caregiving experience to SS in Hong Kong context. Adopting the person-in-environment perspective with social-ecological model, the conceptual framework is further enhanced by adding four levels to the elements affecting the motivation to care, including societal, community, relationship, and individual level.

Date of Award	12 Sept 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Oi Wah Esther CHOW (Supervisor)