Stroke duties : a hermeneutic enquiry into family experience six months post-stroke

Abstract

Introduction: Stroke is the third largest cause of death in New Zealand and is a major cause of disability. While a lot is known about the stroke survivor and the primary caregiver, little is known about how stroke affects the survivor’s wider family.

Aims: This study’s aim is to investigate the lived experience of being a family member of someone who has had a stroke, over the period of six months from the initial stroke. It is part of a larger longitudinal four year project exploring the stroke family lifeworld.

Method: The method used was hermeneutic phenomenology as guided by Max van Manen (1997).

Results: The stroke survivor is not the only person who needs care. The overarching theme is duty of care. There are three sub-themes: care is ‘different for different people’; there are care ‘expectations of self and expectations of others’; and care brings ‘strain’. All are significant in the family experience. The family have expectations and obligations of their own duty of care and these are also influenced by sources outside the family. In addition there are considerations of fairness regarding the sometimes competing needs of the survivor and the caregiver.

Conclusion: Strains on the family change over time. Competing values of mercy and fairness within this family take up time and risk disengagement of the family from the stroke survivor’s progress.