Abstract

This study aims to examine the relations of the activity of daily living of stroke survivers and social supports toward family caregivers to the stress response and the subjective well-being of family caregivers. The participants were 167 (26 males and 141 females) family caregivers of stroke survivers, whose ages ranged from 23 to 84 (M=54.36, SD=13.87). The instruments utilized in the present study were Koh's Stress Response Scale, Korean version of Cambell's Scale for Subjective Well-being, and Barthel Index. Result indicated that family caregivers with male patients showed more severe stress responses and lower level of subjective well-being than those with female patients. Family caregivers who received more social supports were less likely to show stress responses and higher level of subjective well-being even though adjusted by the gender and age of patients. All kinds of social supports which were given to family caregivers were closely related to their subjective well-being, and especially family caregivers' fatigue and depression were closely related to social supports. By the activity of daily living of stroke survivers, there was no significant differences in the stress response and the subjective well-being of family caregivers. And the suggestion for future studies and the possible influence of social supports to the stress response and quality of life of family caregivers with stroke survivers were discussed with these results and previous studies. (Korean J Str Res 2008;16:261∼269)

• Keywords: Stress, ADL, Social supports, Subjective well-being, Stroke patients, Caregivers