Knowledge on post-stroke care, perceived and observed skills related to activities of daily living, their interrelationships and gender influences among family caregivers of dependent stroke survivors in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Introduction: Stroke is a sudden onset turning point of life that necessitates the post-stroke care to be taken over mostly by family caregivers (FCGs) for post-stroke home-based care. This study aimed to assess the level of knowledge on post-stroke care, perceived skills, and actual skills related to Activities of Daily Living (ADL), their inter-relationships and gender influences among family caregivers.
Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study used consecutive sampling to recruit 450 FCGs from three hospitals in Colombo. An investigator-administered questionnaire was administered to 450 FCGs, and a skill observation checklist was administered to 250 FCGs from the sample. Data were analysed using non-parametric tests, including the Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman Rank Order correlation (ρ).
Results: The findings indicated that almost equal distribution of male and female FCGs recruited in the study (male = 235, 52.2%) with a median age of 49 years (IQR: 20 - 56). Overall, FCGs demonstrated a poor level of knowledge (n=398, 88.4%) and a satisfactory level of perceived skills (n=193, 42.9%), but low levels of actual caregiving performance (n=183, 73.2%). While most FCGs could identify basic post-stroke care needs, deficits were noted in areas such as rehabilitation techniques and prevention of complications. Perceived skills were positively correlated with knowledge (ρ = 0.291, p<0.018), yet neither showed a strong association with actual caregiving performance (ρ = 0.188, p=0.054).
Conclusions: FCGs had poor knowledge on post-stroke care. Though perceived skill is at a satisfactory level, their actual care giving performance was low. Findings emphasized a need for properly devised target-oriented gender-neutral training for all FCGs of dependent stroke survivors on care related to ADL, to improve the post-stroke home-based care in Sri Lanka.