Home-based care of stroke patients in rural Zimbabwe: Knowledge of caregivers

Objectives: To describe and explore the knowledge and practices of primary care-givers and information they get from village health workers on infection prevention and control among home-based stroke patients. Materials and methods: A descriptive and exploratory study was conducted on 200 primary caregivers and 200 village health workers selected using multistage random sampling method. Data were col-lected using questionnaires. Visual Basic for Applications package analysed the data and analysis of variance examined differences between demographic charac-teristics of participants. Chi-square test was used to determine whether the socio-demographic information and adequacy of information given were associated. Sta-tistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Results: Primary caregivers were not well informed of the measures to prevent chest infections and urinary tract infections as they rated themselves poor or very poor in practising these measures. There was a correlation between knowledge of prevention and control of infection to primary caregivers' level of education (chi-square=7.49; p=0.024), and residence (chi-square=72.33; p=0.001). There was an association between information given by vil-lage health workers on rated adequacy of information and information given on: chest infections (chi-square=20.65; p < 0.0005), skin infections (chi-square=13.42; p=0.009) and urinary tract infections (chi-square=19.20; p=0.001). The information given by village health workers to primary caregivers was also associated with resi-dence (chi-square=107.15; p < 0.0005). Conclusion: Overall, primary caregivers had limited knowledge of infections in home-based stroke patients while the village health caregivers seldom gave them the necessary information. With the necessary training home-based care of stroke patient in Zimbabwe may improve. l (c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.