Evaluation of Home Health Care Intervention for Cerebral Stroke Patients and Their Caregivers in Benha City

Cerebrovascular stroke has become an increasingly important health problem worldwide. It
is ranked as the third leading cause of death, behind heart disease and cancer. Stroke is a leading
cause of serious long- term disability. The aim of this study was to evaluate home health care
intervention for cerebral stroke patients and their caregivers in Benha city. Design: Quasi -
experimental design was utilized in carrying out this study. Setting: the study was conducted at
the neurologic outpatients' clinics of Benha University Hospital, Health Insurance Hospital and
Teaching Hospital in Benha City. The sample of this study included 100 stroke disease patients
chosen randomly from total (1000).Tools utilized in this study comprised a structured
interviewing questionnaire for the assessment of the stroke patients and their caregivers' sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge about disease, daily living activities and caregivers
burden scale; and observational checklist for home environment assessment, caregivers practices
to their patients as feeding, communication skills, giving medications and oral hygiene and degree
of self-dependency of cerebral stroke patients through daily living activities. Results of this study
showed that 64% of the stroke patients were males and aged 48 years or more with mean age was
54.3±18.2, the majority of caregivers were females, 30% of them aged 18-˂ 28 years with mean
age was 36.6±12.4. There was a significant positive effect of home health care intervention on
knowledge and practices of cerebral stroke patients and their caregivers after the implementation
of the intervention. This study concluded that, there was highly statistically significant relation
in the total knowledge score of the stroke patients and their caregivers' pre and post program
implementation and there was a positive significant correlation between stroke patient caregivers'
total knowledge score and total practices pre and post program implementation.
Recommendations: Health educational program should provide stroke patients and their
caregivers' with the needed knowledge and practices before hospital discharge.