Abstract
Introduction: With the unprecedented population growth of older adults worldwide, higher life-expectancies are creating increasingly more multigenerational interaction. Funded by the General Research Fund of the Research Grant Council in Hong Kong, the study examined the effects of telephone-administered perspective-taking intervention in the context of intergenerational caregiving. The data was collected from 2019 to 2021 in Hong Kong.
Method: Through a cluster-randomized trial, one-hundred seventy-six adult child caregivers of persons living with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) were randomized into two twelve-week interventions: 1) Connecting through Caregiving with intergenerational perspective-taking reappraisals (n=91) and 2) Basic Skill Building (n=85). All interventions are administered via telephone, Both groups receive the basic skills training including 1) monitoring mood and scheduling pleasant events and 2) communication with the care recipient & 3) communication skills with other family member and helping professionals. The CTC group spends less time on basic skills and focused on perspective-taking reappraisals aiming to promote balance between self-care and caring of others. These reappraisals include: 1) connecting with self through enhancing self-awareness, 2) connecting with the care-recipient and 3) connecting with others who can help.
Results: In terms of primary outcomes, as compared to the BSB group, the CTC group reported significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms and higher levels of psychological well-being. For the secondary outcomes, the CTC group scored higher in emotional and instrumental support and also lower levels of perceived presence and reaction to behavioral and memory problems of the care recipient. Perspective-taking was found to mediate between intervention effects and reduction of depressive symptoms of the caregiver.
Conclusion: The results provided evidence for the efficacy of the CTC program. The telephone-administered intervention was very useful in supporting caregivers during COVID. With population aging, there is a rapid increase of people suffering from dementia and those who will provide caregiving. The study contributes towards enhancing sustainability of caregiving in dementia
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Very good study demonstrating the impact of exploring what matters to those with a condition and those who provide the care.It is also very good that this has been shown to be effective while being delivered by telephone lending itself to an easier scaling up across an area.
I was uncertain what was meant by' adult child caregivers'. I have assumed you meant adult care givers who are the children of the person with dementia.
Really good study and will benefit from being written up as a full length article for publication in a peer reviewed joiurnal.
Well done