Carers in focus : ongoing study on technological solutions to support stroke rehabilitation in Switzerland

Background: Stroke often results in long-term physical, cognitive, and emotional impairments, with care typically provided by informal caregivers, such as family members or friends, who often lack prior experience in this role. These informal caregivers face various challenges, including inadequate preparation and education and limited support, which can lead to physical, emotional, and psychological strain (1). As the number of people living with chronic stroke increases, the need for targeted informal caregiver education has become evident, yet current resources remain limited, require caregivers to attend in person classes at a given time and place. Caregiver-centered approaches and technology-based educational offers, offer a promising way to address these gaps (2). Aim: This project explores the needs of informal caregivers of people with stroke in Switzerland, aiming to identify key topics for education needs and preferred methods of information delivery. The findings will contribute to developing a tailored Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for informal caregivers of people living with stroke. Methods: In this ongoing research project, we plan to collect data through a multilingual online questionnaire. The survey was developed based on qualitative research (1) and literature, targeting informal caregivers in Switzerland. It will assess caregivers’ needs with regards to education about stroke, baseline burden levels (3), and attitudes toward technology. We completed pretesting to ensure usability and data collection is currently underway. We will use descriptive statistics to summarize responses, logistic regression to explore key relationships between caregiver characteristics and support needs and thematic analysis for open-ended responses. Results & Implications: The study will offer insights into caregiver needs and guide the development of a technology-based educational tool. Results will be presented in May 2025.