Development and ealuation of a home-based, comprehensive intervention program for dementia patients' family caregivers : a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

[한글]

[영문]This study is composed with contents that are the development of a home-based, comprehensive intervention program for family caregivers who provide care to the elderly with dementia and a randomized controlled trial comparing the program's effectiveness to a control condition. The study period for program was six weeks including home visits, group meetings, and supportive phone-calls. A total of 63 caregivers were randomly assigned to the intervention group (n=31) or the control group (n=32). The intervention group showed significantly higher level of knowledge, self-efficacy, family coping, and preventive health behaviors and significantly lower level of family burden. However, it was not deemed to have a favorable effect on personal growth. These findings indicate that development of additional contents and strategies will be required in order to improve caregivers' personal growth. In addition, for family caregivers in various situations, it will require to provide an intervention based a protocol such as this program.