Caring for Older Adults with Stroke During Hospitalization: Thai Family Caregivers’ Experience

Abstract

This study aimed to describe the difficulties in caring for older adults with stroke during
hospitalization as experienced by Thai family caregivers. Twenty-six participants who met the inclusion criteria, such as experienced in providing care for older adult stroke survivors within the past 12 months were recruited by using purposive sampling. The data were collected between November 2013 and October 2014. In-depth interviews were performed. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Trustworthiness was established by following Lincoln and Guba’s criteria. Five themes were revealed describing in the experience
of caring for older adult stroke patients during hospitalization. These included 1) facing a crisis; 2) difficulty in making decisions about the treatment options; 3) being incompetent in providing care and relying on healthcare staff, 4) difficulty in accessing help from healthcare staff; and 5) difficulty in learning care skills.The findings of this study suggested that caring for older adult patients during hospitalization was a highly stressful experience. Family caregivers need encouragement and support from both family members and
healthcare providers in order to provide compassionate care to patients. Knowledge gained from this study is applicable for healthcare providers, particularly clinical nurses in order to develop the appropriate intervention to promote family caregivers proficiency in caring for older adult patients during hospitalization.