Perfil dos cuidadores e seus conhecimentos a respeito da disfagia orofaríngea em pacientes com sequela de acidente vascular encefálico hospitalizados

Abstract

Introduction: Stroke is the leading cause of acquired physical disability and death in the world. Among the consequences, dysphagia is responsible for 23% to 81% of disabilities found in post-stroke hospitalized patients. Due to its complexity and need for individualized care, patients require speech therapy assistance and caregivers’ collaboration towards maintenance and monitoring feeding once aspiration pneumonia and malnutrition are common complications. Objective: To determine the profile,knowledge and difficulty of caregivers towards oropharyngeal dysphagia and their behavior while feeding post-stroke dysphagic patients. Method: Cross-sectional exploratory study with 59 dysphagic patients’ caregivers treated at Hospital Municipal São José at Joinville / SC, between July and August 2013. Data acquisition took place in two steps: active search through digital medical records for dysphagic patients previously evaluated by a speech therapist and providing a questionnaire to be answered by their respectively caregivers. Results: The results suggest the caregivers’ profile to be mostly female, mean age 47.3 years, ±13.9 years, literate, informal, married, working part and fulltime (10 hours), less than 1 year experienced and 47.5% were lay. Caregivers demonstrated their knowledge towards feeding precautions, such as the correct feeding posture (91.5 %), risk of respiratory and nutritional complications (88.1 %), oral hygiene contribution for better nutrition and lung’s safety (81.4 %), ideal food consistency (62.7 %) , recognizing some solids and liquids swallowing disturbances (64.4 % and 54.2 % respectively) and what professional will allow reintroduction of oral feeding(55.0 %). However, the results also suggest the need for specific orientation about oral diet offering (74.5 %), performing oral hygiene according the hospital routine (71.2 %), recognizing the signs and symptoms of dysphagia (23.7 %) and how to act before choking (10,2%). Conclusion: This study observed that only 10 of 59 subjects were formal caregivers the great part were informal caregivers mostly patients’ adult children, married, female and have been subjected to this condition by the patient’s needs. Caregivers showed some knowledge about general care and feeding the dysphagic patients and also about specific difficulties during the care process regardless of caregiving experience time. The education level was the main determinant factor.