Influence of health education and physiotherapy on functional independence among Nigerian stroke survivors

This study was carried out to compare the effectiveness of physiotherapy and combined health education and physiotherapy intervention on functional independence among Nigerian stroke survivors. A total of 50 stroke survivors in University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) and Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH) were divided into the control (ISTH) and experimental group (UBTH) which were made up of 25 participants each. The experimental group were administered a combination of health education and structured physiotherapy programme while the control group were administered only structured physiotherapy programme. Analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) was used to test the hypothesis. Bonferroni post-hoc test was used to identify the source of the difference between the groups. Statistical significance was accepted for p value of <0.05. Findings showed that there was improvement in the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) following combined health education and physiotherapy from 32.08 ± 1.10 to 112 ± 1.75. Also, there was improvement in FIM following only physiotherapy from 33.20 ± 1.15 to 55.64 ± 1.81. However, there was an adjusted mean difference of 57.031 ± 2.53 in FIM between the experimental and control group. A variance of 91.5% in FIM was accounted for health education. It is therefore concluded that a combination of physiotherapy with health education is the best approach to substantially optimize the functional independence of Nigerian stroke survivors.