Stroke-related factors that can trigger distress amongst family members:
- Suddenness of stroke. Family/patient have no time to prepare for the possibility of dying
- Feelings of guilt about personal contributions to the illness/situation e.g. ‘if I’d been there, perhaps I could have called the ambulance more quickly and the person would have received thrombolysis’
- Distress at seeing symptoms such as aphasia, incontinence, agitation or cognitive impairment
- Grief. A stroke survivor may be changed for ever if he/she survives
- Being involved in helping to make difficult but important decisions. Families are often unsure what a relative would want if this has not been discussed prior to the stroke
- Not receiving the same message from different members of staff. This partly reflects the uncertainty of prognosis and that clinical situations can change from day to day. But the perception of mixed messages may give the impression that staff don’t know what is happening
Page last reviewed: 16 Jan 2023
