The Caregiver Burden and Stroke Prognosis

This prospective study aimed to describe the caregiver burden and its effects on stroke prognosis and to correlate socio-demographic variables. Three centers from two cities in Turkey participated in this study. One hundred and ninety eight stroke patients and their primary caregivers were included in the study for a follow up period of 6 months. Stroke prognosis has been evaluated using Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIH-SS) and Barthel Index (BI). Caregiver burden have been studied using Caregiver Stress Scale (CSS), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Our study showed that good prognosis of stroke sufferers is directly correlated with a good BAI and BDI performances but there was no correlation with CSS. Stroke prognosis was commonly affected by the city of residence and gender of the patients. On the other hand, age of the caregiver; both with the city of residence and the type of the hospital in the same city have significant effect on CSS performance. Caregiver gender and the city factor have significant effect on both BAI and BDI performances according to mixed model analysis. These data showed that caregiver burden is an important factor on stroke prognosis and these factors are significantly affected by both individual and local factors in the same country.