Behavioral Activation for Dementia Caregivers

Behavioral Activation for Dementia Caregivers: Scheduling Pleasant Events and Enhancing Communications

Status

Completed

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT03552159

Enrollment

Registered

2018-06-11

Start date

2012-12-01

Completion date

2016-06-30

Last updated

2019-06-04

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Dementia Caregivers

Brief summary

This project was designed to test a model targeted intervention for dementia caregivers telephone program consisting of both psychoeducation and behavioral activation components to reduce the burden of caregivers. The program is delivered by telephone to increase accessibility and sustainability for caregivers.

Detailed description

The study compared two telephone interventions using a four-month longitudinal randomized controlled trial. For the first four weeks, all participants received the same psychoeducation program via telephone. Then for the following four months, eight biweekly telephone follow-up calls were carried out. For these eight follow-up calls, participants were randomized into either one of the two following groups with different conditions. For the Psychoeducation with BA (PsyED-BA) group, participants would receive eight biweekly sessions of BA practice focused on pleasant event scheduling and improving communications. For the Psychoeducation only (PsyED Only) group, there would be eight biweekly sessions of general discussion of psychoeducation and related information

Interventions

BEHAVIORALBehavioral activation

Activity scheduling, monitoring, review and re-scheduling

OTHERPsychoeducation

Education on dementia, caregiving stress, event scheduling and communication skills

Study design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Intervention model

PARALLEL

Primary purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

DOUBLE (Subject, Outcomes Assessor)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

25 Years to 70 Years

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

They were caregivers aged 25 or above and must have be caring for a care recipient diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease for at least 3 months. They should be the primary caregiver and a spouse, kin (e.g. daughter/son or daughter/son-in-law) or sibling of the care recipient.

Exclusion criteria

To ensure intervention fidelity, participants who showed signs of severe intellectual deficits, demonstrate suicidal ideation, exhibit evidence of psychotic disorders, or cannot read or speak fluent Chinese / Cantonese were excluded.

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Depressive Symptoms	Change from baseline through study completion, an average of about 5 months	Measured by CES-D

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Sense of Burden	Change from baseline through study completion, an average of about 5 months	Measured by Zarit Burden Scale

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026