Background: Studies showed that over 80% of family caregivers expressed that the nurses’ teaching content were often unsatisfied and unmet. Inappropriate teaching content have been reported one of the possible reasons for unsatisfied learning outcomes.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the caregiving needs viewed between family caregivers and nurses.
Method: A qualitative descriptive study design was used to collect and analyzed in-depth interview data. Participants were 22 stroke family caregivers and 15 neurology ward nurses. Each participant had 1-1.5 hours of face-to-face interview, during August to November, 2014.
Results: Before discharge caregivers and nurses indicated 13 items of needs, mainly on learning caregiving knowledge and skills. Caregivers indicated learning how to safely transfer, appropriately change and position their stroke survivors, to correctly perform tube feeding and diaper changing were the priorities. Both caregivers and nurses consistently indicated the first skill needed to learn was diaper changing, and the most difficult skills to learn and perform were suctioning and tube feeding. Transferring was an important skill for caregivers but nurses rarely taught this skill. Caregivers and nurses indicated 24 expected caregiving needs after discharge, categorized as “learning caregiving knowledge and skills,” “improving caregiving environment and applying assistant devices at home,” and “receiving social resources.” There was a large inconsistence of needs indicated by caregivers and nurses. Caregivers primary focused on learning “how to preventing stroke recurrence” and “how to perform daily life activities;” while, nurses focused on learning how to perform medical care skills. The percentages of the 24 needs reported by nurses were significantly lower than by caregivers.
Recommendations: Developing an effective assessment tools to discover what caregivers really needs in hospital and after discharge is urgent. Furthermore, for ensuring care quality after discharge, training a stroke nursing specialist in charge of preparing caregivers before going home is highly recommended.
