Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Internet-Based Supportive Interventions for Family Caregivers of People With Dementia: A Randomized Controlled Trial Abstract
ABSTRACT
Background:
As dementia progresses, patients exhibit various psychological and behavioral symptoms, placing a heavy burden on families and society. However, caregivers lack professional care knowledge and skills, making it difficult for them to effectively cope with the diverse challenges of caregiving. Therefore, it is urgent to provide caregivers with professional knowledge and skills guidance.
Objective:
Aim:Analyzing the Impact of Internet-based Online Training on the care burden and caregiving abilities of dementia caregivers.
Methods:
Design:According to a consecutive enrollment method, a tertiary grade-A hospital's elderly medical center recruited 72 informal caregivers for dementia patients, divided into an intervention group and a control group, with 36 cases in each group. The intervention group received caregiver skill training based on an online platform, while the control group received face-to-face follow-up guidance and then received online training after 6 months. To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention program, researchers used the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire (NPI-Q), the Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview (ZBI), and the Severe Cognitive Impairment Dementia Scale (SCIDS) for assessment before the intervention, 3 months after the intervention, and 6 months after the intervention.
Results:
Results:
A total of 66 patients successfully completed the intervention and follow-up. After 6 months of intervention, the NPI-Q score of the intervention group was 3.18 ± 3.81, the ZBI score was 10.97±5.43, and the SCIDS score was 71.88± 4.78. The NPI-Q score of the control group was 8.09 ± 8.52, the ZBI score was 30.30 ± 13.05, and the SCIDS score was 50.12 ± 9.10. The differences between the groups were statistically significant (P<0.05). Repeated measures analysis of variance showed significant improvements in NPI-Q, ZBI, and SCIDS total scores in the intervention group at 3 and 6 months post-intervention compared to pre-intervention (P<0.05). Furthermore, covariance analysis results demonstrated that the online training intervention program significantly reduced NPI-Q scores in dementia patients and ZBI scores in caregivers while increasing SCIDS scores, after excluding time effects (P<0.05).
Conclusions:
Conclusion: Online training based on the internet could significantly reduce the level of behavioral symptoms in elderly patients with dementia and alleviate the burden on caregivers, enhancing their caregiving abilities. The research results fully confirmed the effectiveness and feasibility of online training, which was of great significance in providing caregiving knowledge training for caregivers of dementia. Clinical Trial: This study was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry Trial Registry(Register number: ChiCTR-2200057858).
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.