Skip to main content

BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Rehabil. Sci.
Sec. Interventions for Rehabilitation
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fresc.2024.1490874
This article is part of the Research Topic Promoting Health Management in Rehabilitation View all 5 articles

Caregiver perceptions of usual care home programs for persons with acquired brain injury: A qualitative descriptive study

Provisionally accepted
Elena V. Donoso Brown Elena V. Donoso Brown 1*Kasey Stepansky Kasey Stepansky 1Sarah E. Wallace Sarah E. Wallace 2Isabella Bien Isabella Bien 1Emma Buttino Emma Buttino 1
  • 1 Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, United States
  • 2 University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: The study explores caregiver perceptions of home programs for clients with acquired brain injury based on current clinical care after transition to the community. Design: A qualitative descriptive study. Setting: Within the community, post inpatient rehabilitation. Participants: A convenience sample of eight caregivers of clients with acquired brain injury from one clinical site. All participants spoke English, were between the ages of 18 and 85 years, had no neurodegenerative disorders, and self-identified as caregivers. Procedures: Two nested semi-structured interviews were completed post-discharge from an inpatient rehabilitation facility. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Qualitative data analysis was performed utilizing MAXQDA© software, consensus coding, and abstraction of themes. Results: Two themes with subsequent subthemes were identified: 1) Systems, Roles, and Responsibilities Influenced Caregivers’ Perceptions of Home Program and Recovery Outlook & 2) Caregiver Home Program Experience. The first theme addresses topics of caregiver roles and responsibilities, system supports and barriers, and their general outlook on recovery. Within the second theme, results provide a chronological description of home program training, use, and modification. Conclusions: A caregiver’s outlook on the care receiver’s recovery and home program implementation is influenced by the burden of responsibilities, and system-level supports and barriers. The home program experience of the caregivers was reported to involve limited but satisfactory training. Caregivers saw the value in home programs and advised others to engage in them. Future programs should encourage healthcare providers to provide explicit instruction to the caregiver about their intrinsic value to home program implementation and adherence.

    Keywords: caregiver, acquired brain injury, Home program, adherence, Qualitative, Usual care

    Received: 03 Sep 2024; Accepted: 18 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Donoso Brown, Stepansky, Wallace, Bien and Buttino. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Elena V. Donoso Brown, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.