Stroke caregivers' perception on instant messaging application use for psychological intervention: a qualitative...

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Psychology
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability globally, impacting over 80 million individuals.
• Family caregivers of stroke patients experience significant psychological and physical burdens, facing barriers to accessing support services.
• The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges by limiting in-person caregiver support and highlighting the need for alternative interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the perceived utility of instant messaging (IM) applications for delivering psychological interventions to stroke caregivers.
• To understand caregivers' perspectives on the convenience, accessibility, and effectiveness of IM-based psychological support.
• To identify potential benefits and challenges of using IM for caregiver interventions in real-world settings.

Main Methods:

• Conducted individual telephone semi-structured interviews with 36 adult family stroke caregivers in Hong Kong.
• Employed purposive sampling to recruit participants between January and August 2020.
• Utilized an interpretive description approach for analyzing transcribed interview data.

Main Results:

• Caregivers perceived IM-delivered psychological interventions as highly convenient and easy to use.
• Participants identified advantages of IM that overcome existing barriers to accessing traditional support services.
• The flexibility of IM allowed for message delivery tailored to individual caregiver needs.

Conclusions:

• There is a significant need for personalized psychological interventions for stroke caregivers.
• Instant messaging (IM) applications represent a promising modality for overcoming barriers and delivering accessible, real-time support to caregivers.
• The study highlights caregiver acceptance and perceived benefits of IM-delivered psychological interventions, offering insights for intervention design.