A videoconferencing group-based psychoeducation for family caregivers of people living with dementia: a feasibility study

BACKGROUND: The family caregivers of people living with dementia may be limited to staying at home because of their engagement in caregiving tasks, living remotely and difficulty seeking substitute care. Therefore, family caregivers may be unable to attend conventional in-person group-based psychoeducation, which is important in enhancing their caregiving self-efficacy through informational and emotional support. An alternative mode of delivering psychoeducation remotely, such as tele-technology, may better facilitate family caregivers’ participation in psychoeducation. METHODS: A quasi-experimental study was conducted to test the feasibility, acceptability, and helpfulness (with preliminary effect observed with RSCSE score) of videoconferencing group-based psychoeducation among family caregivers of people with early-to-moderate-stage dementia. Adult family caregivers of community-dwelling persons with mild-to-moderate-stage dementia were recruited. They received the intervention either online via Zoom videoconferencing or in-person for six weeks. Feasibility was measured in subject recruitment, attrition upon intervention completion and completion rate. Acceptability was assessed based on participants’ satisfaction, and qualitative interviews were used for process evaluation. The preliminary effect on caregiving self-efficacy was measured by the Revised Scale of Caregiving Self-Efficacy (RSCSE) at baseline and immediately after the intervention. The Mann‒Whitney U test was performed to examine changes in the mean RSCSE score between groups postintervention. RESULTS: Sixty subjects were recruited from two community centers for older adults and Facebook, which yielded a recruitment rate of 78%. The attrition rate upon intervention completion was 8.3%. The completion rates were 96.5% and 93.5% in the in-person and online groups, respectively. The intervention was acceptable, with a mean satisfaction score of 4.7 out of 5 in the online group and 4.5 in the in-person group. The qualitative findings revealed four themes: advantages of the online format, active learning, perceived benefits and implementation challenges. Family caregivers in the online group reported a significantly greater improvement in the responding to disruptive behaviours subscale of the RSCSE post intervention (r = 0.26; p = 0.037). CONCLUSIONS: The newly developed videoconferencing group-based psychoeducation was feasible and acceptable, and the preliminary effects of the online format were comparable with those of the in-person intervention. A larger robust study is needed to examine the intervention effects. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This study was retrospectively registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT06042634).