Education Program for Family Caregivers

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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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
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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.

Official Title
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Evaluation of Education Program for Family Caregivers of Frail Elders

Conditions
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Stress

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Education program for family caregivers of frail elders


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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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)

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Treatment
Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: Single arm<br>Education program for family caregivers of frail elders. | Behavioral: Education program for family caregivers of frail elders<br>* Family caregiver participants in the educational program will receive an educational course presented by the investigator that focuses on the care of the frail elder and themselves. The course will involve four to five consecutive weekly sessions, each 2 1/2 to 3 hours long. The educational program will be offered biannually, spring and fall seasons.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Hardiness (change over time) | 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). | pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention | 

Secondary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Knowledge of Caregiving (change over time) | 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. | pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention | 
| Quality of Life (change over time) | 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). | pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention | 
| Physical and Mental Health (change over time) | 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. | pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention | 
| Depressive Symptomatology (change over time) | 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). | pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention | 
| Caregiver Burden (change over time) | 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. | pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention | 
| Coping (change over time) | 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. | pre-intervention, immediate post-intervention, six-month post-intervention, and twelve-month post intervention | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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family caregivers, caregiver education, caregiver burden, caregiver hardiness, caregiver depressive symptoms