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Psychosocial telephone intervention for dementia caregivers: A randomized, controlled trial
Geoffrey Tremont1, Jennifer D Davis1, George D Papandonatos2
1Department of Psychiatry, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
Background:
Identifying effective and accessible interventions for dementia caregivers is critical as dementia prevalence increases.
Objective:
Examine the effects of a telephone-based intervention on caregiver well-being.
Design:
Randomized, controlled trial.
Setting:
Academic medical center.
Participants:
Two hundred and fifty distressed, family, dementia caregivers.
Intervention:
Caregivers randomized to receive 16 telephone contacts over 6 months of either the Family Intervention: Telephone Tracking-Caregiver (FITT-C) or Telephone Support (TS).
Outcome:
Primary outcome variables were family caregivers' depressive symptoms, burden, and reactions to care recipients' behavior problems at 6 months.
Results:
The FITT-C intervention resulted in significantly improved caregiver depressive symptoms (P = .003; 27% net improvement) and less severe reactions to care-recipient depressive behaviors (P = .009; 29% net improvement) compared with the control condition (TS).
Conclusion:
An entirely telephone-based intervention improves caregivers' depressive symptoms and reactions to behavior problems in the care recipient and is comparable with reported results of face-to-face interventions.
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