Desafio do cuidado domiciliar : avaliação da sobrecarga de cuidadores de pacientes acometidos por acidente vascular encefálico

Abstract

To study the burden of the caregivers of the patients affected by stroke contributes to the improvement of nursing care by making it more skilled and geared to the needs of this population. The objective was to evaluate the main burden of family caregivers of the patients with stroke. Cross-sectional study was conducted from January to April 2010. It was carried out in Fortaleza-Ceará, Brazil, in 2010, at Home Care Program. Established themselves as inclusion criteria: be the principal family caregiver and pursue such activity for at least two months. Caregivers who were unable to give information about the health-disease patients, and caregivers of stroke patients who had mental disorders, and other neurological diseases, were alcoholics or drug addicts were excluded. We interviewed 61 caregivers in relation to demographic data, activities performed, presence of pain, assessment of financial expenditures, the presence of psychiatric symptoms through Self Report Questionnaire (SRQ-20), cognitive evaluation by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and evaluation of the burden of care for the Caregiver Burden Scale (CBS). Patients were asked about the sociodemographic, health history, degree of dependence in the Activities of the Daily Living (basic and instrumental) and cognitive evaluation (MMSE) and anthropometric evaluation was performed. The data were compiled in the Excel software and analyzed through the SPSS program, version 15.0. The level of significance considered was 5% (p<0.05). All the ethical recommendations were fulfilled. It was found that most caregivers were female (93.4%), married (52.5%) and daughters of the patient with stroke (50.8%), they had not another occupation (82%), they had family support to engage in the activity of caring and had good schooling. The caregivers exerted on the caregiver for at least 27 months and 18 hours per day devoted to his family. Patients were primarily female (59%), elderly, bedridden, with a low educational level, other events of stroke, highly dependent, low cognitive level (95.1%). Depending on the observed, the caregivers had health problems such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia and osteoporosis. Many caregivers complained of pain after engaging in this activity. Others presented with psychological distress (44.3%). As for the activities performed, they understood, above all, self-care activities. Besides taking care of the patients, they took care of children or grandchildren. Changes in daily routine and emotional status were reported. Despite the above problems, it was observed that caregivers performed the care, especially for pleasure (70.5%). In relation to the burden it was found an average of 2.36 (± 0.59) on CBS, superior national and international studies. That burden suffered higher impact when the caregivers have higher scores on the SRQ-20, in the absence of a secondary caregiver, and when the caregivers reported that they had noticed any change in their body and health, and when the patient was taking several medications daily. The findings underscore the need for nursing staff to act not only with patients affected by stroke, but also on prevention and health promotion and their caregivers who are burdened.