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Many stroke survivors suffer with varying degrees of disability and require assistance. Family members commonly act as informal caregivers, caring for these stroke survivors and ensuring care adherence. However, many caregivers reported a poor quality of life and physical and psychological distress. Due to these issues, multiple studies have been conducted to understand the experience of caregivers, the outcomes of caregiving, and interventional studies among caregivers. This study aims to explore the intellectual landscape of studies on stroke caregivers using bibliometric analysis. Studies with “stroke” and “caregiver” terms in the title were extracted from the Web of Sciences (WOS) database. The resulting publications were analysed using the ‘bibliometrix’ package in R. There were 678 publications analysed, dating from 1989 to 2022. The USA has the highest number of publications (28.6%), followed by China (12.1%) and Canada (6.1%). The most productive institution, journal and author were The University of Toronto (9.5%), ‘Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation’ journal (5.8%) and Tamilyn Bakas (3.1%), respectively. Co-occurrences keywords analysis revealed mainstream research on stroke survivors, burden, quality of life, depression, care, and rehabilitation, reflecting the timeless hotspot in the field. This bibliometric analysis helps us understand the current state of stroke caregiver research and its recent developments. This study can be used to evaluate research policies and promote international cooperation.

Taking care of stroke survivors can be taxing, however, it was understudied in Malaysia. This study aims to describe the burden of informal stroke caregivers within three months after hospital discharge. A longitudinal study design was conducted. Acute stroke survivors and their informal caregivers were recruited prior to hospital discharge, and the caregivers were interviewed by phone. Self-reported caregiver burdens were measured with Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview – Malay version (MZBI) and Caregiver Assessment of Function and Upset – Malay version (Malay-CAFU). The MZBI and Malay-CAFU scores were collected four times within three months. A total of 85 stroke survivors and 155 informal caregivers were recruited, with 58.1% of the caregivers were female. The stroke survivors had two caregivers on average. The mean (SD) scores for the three scales show a reduction, from 27.42 (12.73) in the first week to 17.77 (11.20) in the third month for MZBI, from 1.14 (0.94) to 0.62 (0.64) for instrumental activities of daily livings (IADL) of Malay-CAFU upset scale and 1.36 (1.00) to 0.78 (0.65) for activities of daily living (ADL) of Malay-CAFU upset scale in the same period. Stroke survivors may have several caregivers, usually their spouses or children. Within a short period, the caregiver’s burden was reduced. Early psychosocial support to alleviate the caregiver burden may be necessary.