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Education Program for Family Caregivers

Not Applicable
Completed
Conditions
Stress
Registration Number
NCT00764647
Lead Sponsor
CAMC Health System
Brief Summary

The purpose of this evaluation was to determine the effectiveness of an educational program designed to assist family caregivers to learn the knowledge and skills to take better care of their frail elder relatives and themselves.

Detailed Description

Spouses, children, and other family members typically care for frail elderly persons. These family caregivers attempt to provide care for their relative in the home, despite the potential for excessive stress to themselves. This care may extend over many years, involving unrelenting management of their relative, which puts the caregiver at risk for the development of physical and mental health consequences. The stress of caring for a frail elder may result in the institutionalization of the care receiver due to declining health or abilities in the caregiver as caregivers frequently continue to provide care at the expense of their own health. The goal of the education program is to fill an important need, that is, assist caregivers to become empowered, hardier, and have the ability to cope with the stress associated with caregiving. The aim is to investigate whether this educational intervention improves selected outcomes for family caregivers of frail elders. The selected outcomes are knowledge of caregiving, hardiness, quality of life, physical health, depressive symptoms, burden, and coping.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
42
Inclusion Criteria
  • 18 years of age and older
  • family member participating in care of a frail elder (60 years and older)
Exclusion Criteria
  • unable to speak or read English (materials are written in English)

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Hardiness (change over time)pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention

Hardiness was measured using the Psychological Hardiness Scale, a 40 item scale (Younkin \& Betz, 1996). Responses for each item were obtained on a 5-point Likert continuum from "Strongly Disagree" (1) to Strongly Agree (5).

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Coping (change over time)pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention

The Jalowiec Coping Scale (JCS) (Jalowiec, Murphy, \& Powers, 1984) was used to measure coping mechanisms. There are 60 items classified into 8 different coping styles: confrontive, evasive, optimistic, fatalistic, emotive, palliative, supportant, and self-reliant.

Knowledge of Caregiving (change over time)pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention

Knowledge about caregiving was operationalized by total score on a content-specific test (17 items) for the family caregivers' educational program that measured knowledge and behaviors. True/false answers were given to items.

Quality of Life (change over time)pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention

Quality of life measured using a Cantril (1965) ladder scale. The participants viewed a picture of a ladder with nine rungs, with the top rung labeled "best possible life" (9) and the bottom rung labeled "worst possible life (0).

Physical and Mental Health (change over time)pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention

The SF-36v2 Health Survey (Ware \& Sherboume, 1992), a 36-item self-report scale was used to measure the caregiver's view of their health.

Depressive Symptomatology (change over time)pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention

The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977), a 20 item self report scale, was used to measure depressive symptomatology. Participants rated how frequently each symptom occurred during the past week on a scale ranging from rarely or none of the time (0) to most or all of the time (3).

Caregiver Burden (change over time)pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention

The Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI), developed by Novak and Guest (1989), a 24-item multidimensional measure was used to measure caregiver burden. This inventory includes five factors: Time-dependence burden, Developmental burden, physical burden, Social burden, and Emotional burden.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

West Virginia University Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center, Charleston Division

🇺🇸

Charleston, West Virginia, United States

West Virginia University Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center, Charleston Division
🇺🇸Charleston, West Virginia, United States

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