Study on Stroke-rehabilitative Families under Chronic Illness Narratives: a Field Study Based on Rehabilitation Hall of Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in T City, Hebei Province

Abstract

Background There is a lack of research on rehabilitative families based on hospital field experiences in the context of stroke-exacerbated family and social burdens. Objective To analyze the socio-cultural atmospheres present in hospital rehabilitation halls in four narrative dimensions of patients, relatives, families, and medical providers. Methods The interviews were conducted with participants from the rehabilitation department of Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in T city between April and July 2021 to examine the socio-cultural atmospheres in the rehabilitation hall from four perspectives of patients' narratives, relatives' narratives, families' narratives, and doctors' narratives. Results Stroke survivors have enjoyed the positive experience of "post-traumatic growth" in individual and collective joint progress; relatives have spontaneously established a club culture during mutual communications and played the role of "doctor-patient bridge" in accompanying each other; stroke-rehabilitative families as a whole suffered from two tensions, including the external tension due to financial burden on the family, and the internal tension arising from the difficulties in mutual understanding between family members and patients. Doctors were able to be more rational with stroke-rehabilitative families. A comparison between doctor-patient and teacher-student relationships illustrated that doctors would play the role of teacher to some extent when dealing with patients. Conclusion As revealed in the analysis of the socio-cultural atmospheres in the rehabilitation hall, the prevention and treatment of stroke are facing two problems, including difficulty in implementing key effort of prevention and treatment in the primary level, and troubles in accessing medical care resources of some patients. Research on medical humanities, especially the research methodology of medical anthropology, is conducive to constructing a positive doctor-patient relationship.

Keywords

• stroke|stroke rehabilitation|chronic disease|economic burden|qualitative research|medical anthropology|medical humanities