Effects of a Hospital-to-Home Transitional Care Program on Activities of Daily Living, Patients’ Complications, and Self-Management Ability of Caregivers

Abstract

This one group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental research aimed to examine the effects of a hospital-to-home transitional care program on activities of daily living, patients’ complications, and self-management ability of caregivers, Songkhla Hospital. Sample were 34 patients with stroke and their caregivers who were admitted to the stroke unit, Songkhla Hospital from March to September 2021. Samples were purposefully chosen based on research criteria. Research instruments consisted of the hospital-to-home transitional care program, the Barthel activities of daily living index, and a self-management ability questionnaire. The Item-Objective Congruence Index (IOC) ranged from 0.67-1.00, and the Cronbach alpha coefficient of self-management ability questionnaire was 0.88. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, a dependent t-test, and the Wilcoxon signed ranks test.

The results were found as follows: 1) after program completion, patients with stroke had significantly higher activities of daily living than before enrolling to the program (p-value = 0.001) 2) after program completion, there were no patients’ complications after hospital discharge 3) after program completion, caregivers had significantly higher self-management ability than before enrolling to the program (p-value < 0.001). Therefore, the hospital-to-home transitional care program should be applied to other departments for patients before hospital discharge and it should be extended to community hospitals for continuous care of patients with stroke.