Objective: Caring for stroke patients leads to caregiver strain. Caregiver burden following stroke is increasingly recognised as a significant health care concern. This study was conducted to determine factors affecting the burden on caregivers of stroke survivors. Material and Method: This was a descriptive study. Eighty caregivers of stroke patients hospitalized in the intensive and intermediate intensive care clinics of the Neurology Department of the Gazi University Health Research and

more »

... cation Centre were included in the study. The caregiver introductory form, Barthel index (BI), National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) and caregiver burden scale (CBS) were used to collect the data. Results: In our study, a significant negative relationship (r=-0.854, p=0.000) was determined between the mean BI scores (24.55±7.69) and the mean CBS scores (57.52±14.35) and a significant positive relationship was determined between the mean CBS and the mean PSQI daytime dysfunction sub-component scores (1.30±1.42; r=0.223; p=0.046). Conclusion: The burden of care could become so excessive as to negatively impact the caregivers' sleep quality. Our study has demonstrated that caregiver burden increased as the level of independence of stroke patients decreased and daytime dysfunction sleep disorder became more prevalent as the caregivers' burden increased. To reduce the negative impact of burden of care, influencing factors should be determined.