Stress
Conditions
Keywords
family caregivers, caregiver education, caregiver burden, caregiver hardiness, caregiver depressive symptoms
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.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALEducation program for family caregivers of frail elders
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.
Sponsors
CAMC Health System
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
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)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 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
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 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. |
| 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. |
Countries
United States
Contacts
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORBarbara L Nunley, PhD, RN
West Virginia University School of Nursing
Outcome results
None listed