A REVIEW ON PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT AMONG CAREGIVERS OF STROKE SURVIVOR

Abstract

Background: Stroke mainly affect individuals at the peak of their productive life. Caring for stroke survivors often puts a considerable burden on the caregivers. This review is aimed to show the importance of support systems to caregivers in caring the stroke survivors.

Materials and Methods: Literatures were gathered from four search engine; PubMed, Web of Science, Ovid Medline and Ebscohost. Selection process was done through PRISMA process. 30 articles were selected after thorough identification, screening, eligibility process; among 3,812 articles from the search.

Result: Coping mechanism, perceived high social support, and self-sacrifice are domains that may give strength to the caregivers. However, the challenging domains that hit the weakest point of caregiver, that may impact negatively for both survivor and the caregiver includes loss of income, burnout, withdrawn in society, unpreparedness or unmet need, burdensome, depression, declined in quality of life (QOL) and activity or work limitation. Provision system would need to include psychological, community and financial supports besides education on caring for stroke survivor.

Conclusion: Findings of this review may address problems that could be converted into policy and practice. These caregivers have specific needs that could be tackled by health authorities and healthcare professionals.

Keywords: Stroke survivor, caregiver, support systems.