The effects of stroke disability on spousal caregivers

To examine the effects of unilateral stroke patients' neurobehavioral characteristics on spousal psychosocial function.

The sample consisted of twenty unilateral stroke patients and their spousal caregivers.

Patient assessments included mood, affect perception, sensorimotor and cognitive function, marital satisfaction, and activities of daily living. Spousal assessments included mood, marital satisfaction, and perceived stress.

To avoid the risk of committing a type I error, the alpha-level of 0.05 was corrected for multiple comparisons involving the three outcome measures, resulting in an adjusted alpha of 0.017 (0.05/3). Using this criterion, the negative correlation between patient depression and spousal marital satisfaction was statistically significant (rs=-0.585, p=0.007). There was also a trend for hemispheric side of stroke to correlate with spousal stress (rs=0.498, p=0.025), such that strokes in the left hemisphere were associated with greater stress, whereas strokes in the right hemisphere were associated with less stress.

These results show that patient depression in particular constitutes a risk factor for marital dissatisfaction in the first few months following stroke. Given that spousal partners provide a large portion of informal support to stroke patients, successful treatment of patient depression may have benefits at the level of the individual, family, and community.