Affective Touching on Poststroke Depression

This mixed‐method study includes a randomised controlled trial and an exploratory qualitative study, and aims to examine the effects of caregiver‐delivered affective touch on depressive symptoms, state of attachment security, self‐esteem, and perceived family harmony among stroke survivors, and to explore the mediating effect of attachment security and how an intervention may affect depressive symptoms from stroke survivor's perspective. A total of 184 survivor‐caregiver dyads will be recruited from various non‐governmental organisations. The dyads will be randomly allocated to intervention (IG) and control (CG) groups, stratified by the survivor's attachment style. IG caregivers will be taught to deliver a 15‐minute affective touch intervention to stroke survivors. To address the attention effect, CG caregivers will be asked to sit with the survivors during a 15‐minute fine motor coordination exercise. Both activities, affective touching and fine motor exercise, will be performed for 12 weeks (3 times/week), and the outcomes mentioned earlier will be measured at baseline, 12 and 36 weeks after study entry.