Determination of facilitators and barriers in post stroke life, in Kerman city

Stroke is the third leading cause of death, second cause of long-term disability and one of the very important challenging in life. The aim of this research was to explain the barriers and facilitating factors affected on stroke patient's life, and to identify relationship among them with demographic factors and severity of disease. The descriptive-analytic technique was used. All patients who suffered from stroke were recruited in Kerman city. Finally 83 patients were selected, and data were gathered by demographic qualification questionnaire, proven questionnaire by researcher for studying barriers and facilitating factors (after testing validity and reliability), and NIHSS tools. Then, data were analyzed by using descriptive and referential statistics ANOVA test, T-Test, and Pearson coefficient correlation by SPSS software (ver. 16). The findings showed that patients had more problems in the domains of politics, environmental factors, physical, and economic status. Also, they introduced social support from friends, family and prayer as facilitating factors in their lives. There was a significant positive relationship between age and physical and economical problems. Women have used social support and religious coping more than men. Married patients received more social support and their physical and economic problems raised less. Patients with higher severity of disease had more psychological problems such as depression and worry about future and Patients with lower socio-economic status more faced with barriers.