Educational intervention to increase the skill of informal caregivers: A quasi-experimental pilot study

Abstract

Objective: to compare the skill of informal caregivers to care for dependent people undergoing educational planning discharge intervention with and without follow-up at home. Method: this is a quasi-experimental, randomized, simple pilot study, with pre and post-test, not blind, however, with blind assessment of the outcomes, with two follow-up interventions. It was carried out between October 2019 and January 2020 in Maringá, Brazil, with 21 informal caregivers of dependent people, randomized to Intervention Group I and Intervention Group II. Group I underwent an educational intervention consisting of guidance and training during the hospitalization period, with follow-up after hospital discharge by nurses at home, and participants in Group II received only guidance at the hospital. To assess the difference in the level of skill, the COPER 14 instrument was used, applied at times 0, week 1 and week 4, submitting the results to analysis of variance. Results: group I had more than twice as much (mean score=8.94) of skill as Group II (mean score=3.90), with a significant increase in practically all the variables analyzed. A significant increase in the score ranks was detected between the variables cognitive and behavioral skill (1.19-3.00, p=0.001), psychomotor (1.13-3.00, p=0.001) and relational (1.75-2.75, p=0.037) in Group I. Conclusion: the educational intervention given to the Intervention Group I (IG-I) was effective in increasing the skill of informal caregivers of dependent people. Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials RBR-5rzmzf.