Burden, Coping Strategies and Quality of Life among Stroke Caregivers in Kuching, Sarawak

Norliza, Suut (2021) Burden, Coping Strategies and Quality of Life among Stroke Caregivers in Kuching, Sarawak. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).

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Abstract

Stroke is one of the main five leading causes of death and disability in Malaysia. Often, stroke survivors require assistance from their caregivers, depending on the severity of the stroke occurrence. This study’s objective was to assess the burden, coping strategies, and quality of life of stroke caregivers. This study was mixed-method research and used a sequential explanatory design in which two phases of the research process has been followed. In this study, the quantitative data were collected first and followed by qualitative data collection. The study was conducted in one of the stroke rehabilitation centres in Kuching, Sarawak. The non-probability purposive sampling method was chosen to recruit the respondents in this study. Two sets of questionnaires consist of quantitative and qualitative parts that were administered to get the in-depth perceived views about stroke caregivers’ burden, coping strategies and quality of life. A total of 32 respondents were recruited for the quantitative part of the questionnaire, and 18 respondents were interviewed for the qualitative part of the study. Quantitative analysis was done using IBM SPSS version 22.0, while the qualitative part was analysed using content analysis, and the results were presented in the text. The analysis revealed that more than half of the stroke caregivers (56.25%) had a high level of burden. From the analysis, stroke caregivers employed more positive coping strategies. The total mean score (SD) for problem-focused and emotion-focused engagement was 3.11 (0.51) as compared to problem-focused and emotion-focused disengagement that was 2.28 (0.50). For the quality of life, a higher score was in the domain of physical quality of life (mean = 60.93, SD = 14.57) while the lowest was the psychological domain of quality of life (mean = 59.89, SD = 10.93). For the qualitative part, stroke caregivers’ burden and coping strategies were the components being explored. The identified themes for stroke caregivers’ burden were categorised as physical, social, financial, employment and time. For coping strategies employed by stroke caregivers, the themes were mainly identified under the domain of problem-focused and emotion-focused. Stroke caregivers shouldered significant burdens while caring for stroke survivors. Interventions need to be formulated effectively to assist stroke caregivers in coping with the burdens effectively and provide them with a better quality of life. Keywords: Stroke caregiver, stroke survivor, burden, coping strategies, quality of life

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