Qualidade de Vida e Sobrecarga dos Cuidadores Familiares de Pacientes com Sequela de Acidente Vascular Cerebral

Abstract

It is a dissertation consists of two articles. The first to be submitted to the journal "Ciência e Saúde Coletiva", entitled "Predictors of burden of family caregivers of patients with stroke sequel: integrative literature review", using the keywords "Caregivers", "Stroke "and" Overload ", an integrative literature review was performed, including scientific articles published between 2005-2015. The sample included 12 articles in English and two articles in Portuguese. The main predictors of burden on family caregivers were female, not relay the act of caring, the presence of depression and the degree of functional dependence of the patient. The lack of technical preparation, social, emotional and financial support also correlated with the presence of caregiver burden. It was evident the lack of studies, mainly national, to address this issue within the Brazilian socio-economic and cultural reality. In this sense, in a second article to be submitted to "Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagem", entitled "Quality of life and overload of family caregivers of patients with stroke sequel," a cross-sectional study, procurou- to evaluate the quality of life and the burden of 150 family caregivers of patients with stroke sequel. The following instruments were used: the questionnaire for assessing the quality of life of the World Health Organization, smaller version in Portuguese (WHOQOL-BREF) to assess the quality of life of caregivers, the overload Assessment Questionnaire Informal Caregiver (QASCI) to assess the burden of care, the Criterion of economic Classification Brazil (CCEB) to trace the economic profile of caregivers, and a questionnaire to assess the sociodemographic profile of the same. Most caregivers were female, mean age 46, married, spouses and residing with patients. Most had elementary or high school, had car itself, performed the function over 12 months and did not have support for the relay in care. The characteristics that contributed most to the burden of care and poorer quality of life of the caregiver were careful to time more than 12 months, the absence of the relay in the care, lack of family support and social isolation. It was evident that support family caregivers public policy should be developed, especially with regard to the hours of care and relay in care, since it was shown that the lack of time to care for himself and to perform leisure activities exposes caregivers to health risks.