Abstract:
This quasi-experimental research aimed to study the effects of the transitional
care program for stroke patients on caregiver's readiness and burden. The sample
consisted of caregivers of stroke patients admitted at King Chulalongkorn Memorial
Hospital, the Thai Red Cross Society. Purposive sampling was used to select subjects.
The control group (n = 28) received nursing routine care. The experimental group
(n = 28) received nursing routine care and the transitional care program covered
45 - 60 minutes a day for seven consecutive days during hospitalization, follow-up
phone visits of 15 - 20 minutes a day for six weeks on day 3 (72 hours) after discharge,
then once a week starting from days 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, and 42 after discharge
continuously.
The teaching material for caregivers was the official LINE account consisting of
video clips and five infographics. All instruments used were verified for their content
validity by three experts. The content validity indices of the transitional care program,
the caregiver's readiness questionnaire, and the caregiver's burden questionnaire were
.95, .88, and . 91, respectively. The reliability of all instruments was tested with
30 caregivers, except the caregivers' knowledge and the caregivers' skill forms were
tested with 10 caregivers. Kuder-Richardson 20 reliability of caregivers' knowledge
regarding stroke, stroke's patient physical care, and stress management questionnaires
were .77, .74 and .87, respectively. Intraclass correlation coefficients of the caregiver's
skills regarding oral care, promotion of safety swallowing, rehabilitation, and breathing
exercise forms were .98, .95, .87 and .95, respectively. Cronbach's alpha coefficients of
the caregiver's readiness questionnaire and the caregiver's burden questionnaire were
.88 and :91. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and
t-tests.