Factors related to cognitive reserve among caregivers of severe acquired brain injury

•Acquired brain injury is one of the most severe cause of permanent disability.•Following stroke, cognitive and psychosocial changes are present.•Caregivers play an important role in the care and prognosis of stroke patients.•The psychological and cognitive resources could protect caregivers from burden.•Cognitive functions improvement is related to a reduction of self-efficacy skill. Stroke is one of the severe cause of motor and cognitive disabilities. These type of disabilities occurred a strong impact on whole family system. Caregiver burden may determine in relatives of patients with brain injury a decreasement of mental and physical health. The present study aims to better clarify the mechanism through which chronic stress influence caregivers’ cognitive functioning and how the psychological and cognitive resources may represent as a predictive factor. Caregivers were submitted to neuropsychological tests that evaluated level of mental health ad level of burden. Our results showed a significant correlation between cognitive reserve and self-efficacy skills in health care of patients. Findings suggested that the caregiver burden and the level of general distress influenced the cognitive performance. An improvement of cognitive functions is associated with a reduction of self-efficacy skills, causing a caregiver burden improvement.