Quality of Life of Stable Stroke Survivors in Pakistan

Cerebrovascular Disease

Developing Countries, Quality of Life, Mixed Methods, Validation, Caregiver Burden

In study the investigators sought to 1. Assess the quality of life experience in stable post stroke survivors in Pakistan and detail important factors influencing quality of life. 2. Explore the association between primary care giver's quality of life and stroke survivor's quality of life. 3. To validate the quality of life tools and experience via in depth interviews and focus group discussion with the primary care giver of stroke patients to report the quality of life of the primary care giver.

Disability caused by stroke has a detrimental impact on patients with social and physical consequences of stroke being equally devastating. Yet there are only few studies done in South Asia that explore holistically the cumulative impact of disability and quality of life on stroke survivors. In Pakistan majority of stroke patients are cared by close family members and no inpatient rehabilitation services are available in Pakistan for stroke survivors. The amount of support from government is scarce and private systems are largely unregulated therefore the psychosocial problems in Pakistani stroke survivors are different from those experienced by stroke survivors in developed countries. It is proposed that the quality of life of stroke survivors in Pakistan will be worse as compared to stroke survivors in developed countries. However, due to existence of considerable family support even in absence of good government and environmental support systems we cannot be certain about this assumption. Since care givers provide all medical and social services to chronic stroke victims their quality of life and stress level also plays an important role in the care given to the stroke survivors. We propose to conduct a cross-sectional study, in order to assess the quality of life in stroke survivors and its important predictors in Karachi. The domains which will be studied includes physical; in terms of severity of disability, which affects the person after stroke, social functioning; which includes the role of primary care giver and social support given to the stroke survivors, mental health; in which depression affects the life of stroke survivor badly after stroke. Also to explore the perspective of the primary care giver for those important factors which affect the quality of life focus group discussions will be conducted in the study. This is a mixed methods observational analytical study.

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