Interventions to Support Caregivers

Abstract

Suboptimal support of caregivers may have several deleterious conse-quences. These include turning to formal care needed to address the patient's medical and personal care needs and possible services to main-tain the mental and physical health of caregivers, both involve additional financial burden (Mittleman, 2005). As patients' needs grow and their dependence on caregivers increases, the caregivers' ability to maintain a high level of care may be affected. Therefore, interventions address-ing the psychosocial needs of caregivers may improve patient as well as caregiver outcomes, and decrease economic costs related to the use of health services (Mittleman, 2005). A number of theory-and evidence-based interventions have been developed to enhance caregivers' health and well-being, minimize the negative effects of caregiving on caregivers, and optimize outcomes for patients. Attempts to categorize interventions distinguish practical support intervention (e.g., respite interventions) from information and education interventions (targeting knowledge and skills of caregivers), and from psychological or psychosocial support interventions (targeting caregivers' health directly (Kayser & Scott, 2008; Legg et al., 2011; Tong, Sainsbury, & Craig, 2008). This chapter provides an overview of these three categories of inter-ventions. To illustrate the trends in recent research we focus on reporting findings obtained in systematic reviews and meta-analyses that provide an overarching synthesis of high-quality studies. We discuss the content of the interventions, their effectiveness, satisfaction, feasibility, reach, and cultural issues. Practical support – respite services Respite services aim at improvement of the caregivers' well-being through providing a temporary break in their care activities. Respite care takes many forms, including adult day care, institutional respite, or a host family respite. In each form of respite the care recipient is taken care of by some-one else while the caregiver gets a bit of restoration (Mason et al., 2007). In the United States, publicly funded respite services may be available for caregivers of older persons with chronic illness (Mason et al., 2007). A review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of day care programs for older people with chronic health issues indicated that only half of the 22 reviewed trials showed a significant positive effect on caregiver