The healthcare experiences of people with mild stroke in Australia

ABSTRACT

There is minimal understanding of how people with mild stroke experience health services. With recent acknowledgement of the difficulties this population faces, it is imperative that their views are sought on services required to meet their needs. This study aimed to answer the question: ‘How do people with mild stroke perceive their experience of stroke-related healthcare services?’. Qualitative investigation using an interpretative phenomenological analysis. Five participants were interviewed at 1-, 3-, and 6- months post discharge. Three themes were identified that reflected the ‘essence’ of healthcare service experiences: 1) The difficult diagnosis, 2) Standard care: good but not good enough, and 3) A journey better not done alone. It was clear that people with mild stroke and health professionals experienced difficulty linking symptoms to stroke. Following hospital discharge, issues relating to service coordination, information provision, and secondary prevention were identified. A formal support person appeared to increase participants’ feelings of support.

KEYWORDS:

• Stroke
• health services
• diagnosis
• patient education
• secondary prevention

Acknowledgements

The research team would like to firstly acknowledge the participants that took part in this study. Additionally, acknowledgement is given to the Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) research team in which this study was embedded: Professor Suzanne Kuys, Dr Andrew Wong, Miss Leah Thompson and Dr Angela Maguire.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the qualitative nature of the data and to adhere to ethical requirements, data will not be made freely available. The lead author can be contacted by reviewers and readers should they wish to see further elements of the data.

Ethics approval

This research was granted approval by the local ethics committees of the hospital and health service in which the study took place, and relevant universities (University of Queensland and Griffith University), approval numbers: HREC/15/QPCH; 2016000021; GU: 2015/884. The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. The research was undertaken with appropriate informed consent of participants.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship [University of Queensland Research Higher Degree Scholarship]; Allied Health Professions’ Office of Queensland [Health Practitioner’s Research Grant]; Prince Charles Hospital Foundation [New Investigator Grant (NI2017-03)].