The Effect of Rehabilitation Education Program on Family Caregivers of Stroke Patients

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a rehabilitation education Program for family caregivers of stroke patients and to analyze the effects of their depression and burden. Subjects were recruited in R hospital, located in Gyeonggi-do and the period of the study was from April of 2013 to May of 2013. The subject pool was composed of 32 caregivers. Subjects were randomly assigned to either the experimental or nonintervention control conditions with equal number. Control group was taken conventional physical therapy and experimental group was taken conventional physical therapy with rehabilitation education program. Data was analyzed by Chi-square tests, t-tests and paired t-tests using PASW 18.0. This study shows the following results. First, the results showed that the total score of depression decreased significantly after the rehabilitation education program. Second, the results showed that the total score of burden after rehabilitation education Program decreased significantly. The finding indicates that rehabilitation education program for family with CVA patients was effective for reducing depression and burden. In this study, rehabilitation education program showed more effective and significant impact on reducing depression and burden of family caregivers with stroke patients. Especially, the conventional physical therapy with rehabilitation education program is considered as a more effective method than the therapy without rehabilitation education program.