A study about quality of life in hemiplegic stroke patients and their caregivers

Abstract

Hemiplegia is a condition of paralysis of one side of the body usually resultant of stroke. In spite of the growing interest in the study of quality of life in several health conditions. The purpose of this work is to verify the impact of a stroke in the quality of life of patients and caregivers. Home interviews were conducted in three groups: patient, caregiver and control. The instrument used for the assessment of quality of life was the Short Form-36 questionnaire. A total of 200 subjects were interviewed: 91 control, 66 patients and 43 caregivers. It was possible to see that the mean age of the caregiver group is different from that of the control group but the mean age of the patient group is not different from that of the control group. The means obtained in the groups concerning the Body Pain domain, show that there is no statistical difference among the means of the patient, control and caregiver groups. The other seven domains showed similar outcomes, that is, no statistically significant differences were found between the patient and the caregiver groups. The control group showed higher and statistically significant, values a sign of the group's higher quality of life in the seven domains assessed. It's possible to conclude that almost all the Short Form-36 domains in this study were altered when control, patients and caregiver groups were compared, suggesting there is a decrease in the quality of life of stroke patients and their caregivers.