Correlation Of Caregivers' Strain With Patients' Disability In Stroke.

BACKGROUND: Stroke results in serious long-term disability in fifty percent of the survivors, making them dependent on others for activities of daily living. Our study aims to study the effect of this dependence on care-givers. Cross sectional study. METHODS: It was a cross sectional study conducted at Combined Military Hospital Peshawar from September to November 2020. Self-administered questionnaires were used to interview 96 patients with stroke and their caregivers selected through convenience sampling technique. Barthel Index was used to measure disability among patients, whereas Modified Caregivers Strain Index (M-CSI) was used for the caregivers. An association between the two scores was analyzed through Pearson's coefficient of correlation (r) and linear regression. RESULTS: Mean ages of the patients and their caregivers were 66.13±11.32 and 36.32±13.71 years respectively. Median score of Barthel index was 1.00 (interquartile range 0.00- 9.75). Mean M-CSI score was 17.31±5.04. There was significant negative correlation between Barthel Index and M-CSI (R=0.542, p<0.001). No significant association was found between duration of stroke and history of recurrent stroke with Barthel Index (p=0.399 and p=0.527 respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Greater the dependence of patients for activities of daily living on their caregivers, higher is the level of strain among the latter. There is dire requirement of social support and rehabilitation centers to address the physical and mental needs of both the patients and their care providers.

Perspective About Mental Illnesses: A Survey Of Health Care Providers Of Abbottabad.

BACKGROUND: Mental Health problems are widespread globally and are the leading causes of disability. The lives of people living with mental illnesses are often drastically altered by the symptoms of the illness and made worse by the society's reaction. Stigmatizing attitude among general population is prevalent. Relatively less research has been done to explore the attitude of health care providers towards mental illness especially so in Pakistan. This study aims to investigate views of healthcare providers of Abbottabad regarding mental illnesses. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in major hospitals and medical institutes of Abbottabad wherein 640 selfadministered questionnaires based on Opening Minds Scale for Healthcare Providers (OMS-HC) were distributed among healthcare providers selected through non-probability convenience sampling; 553 (86.41%) were returned. Data was collected from June to September 2016 and analyzed using SPSS-16.0. RESULTS: The mean age of the participants is 26.12 years±7.612. Majority 346 (62%) were medical students, 60 (10.8%) were teachers, 50 (9%) were house officers, 70 (12.7%) were trainee medical officers, 27 (4.9%) were consultants. There were 313 (56.6%) females. The highest degree of stigma was observed among the 'Attitudes' of the people while it was relatively lower in Disclosure and Help Seeking domain and least in the factor of Social Distance. CONCLUSIONS: Stigma associated with mental illness is prevalent among healthcare providers..