Development and Validation of an Occupational Therapy Home Program at Discharge from Hospital Following Acute Stroke

Aim: To develop and validate an Occupational Therapy Home Program for Stroke (OTHP-Stroke) at discharge from hospital following acute stroke.

Objectives:

• To understand occupational therapists’ perspectives about the content of home programs to be provided to stroke survivors and caregivers at discharge from hospital following stroke.
• To develop the OTHP-Stroke.
• To validate the OTHP-Stroke.

Justification:

Home programs are a salient component of stroke rehabilitation especially in resource-constrained settings like India.

Mobile-based home programs are currently being researched as a viable option and are relatively in nascent phase of development. However, several challenges have been reported such as technical difficulties and the need for caregiver training for using mobile applications.

Till these are well established and accessible, conventional home programs continue to be pertinent in India.

However currently structured home programs or guidelines are unavailable. This may impact the provision of home programs.

For example, therapists may not be able to address all aspects of home programs due to insufficient time, difficulty in personalizing the home program to the stroke survivors and caregivers needs, etc.

Similarly, caregivers may have difficulty to follow the home program at home especially if only verbal instructions were provided. This may impact the recovery of the stroke survivor.

The current practice of home program provision could be facilitated through a template that provides structure but offers flexibility to tailor according to stroke survivors and caregivers needs.

The present study intends to develop such a template.