Connecting Through Caregiving: Reappraising Intergeneration Relationships (CTC)

Connecting Through Caregiving: Reappraising Intergeneration Relationships for Dementia Caregivers

The purpose of the present study is to examine the effects of perspective-taking reappraisals on the well-being of adult-child dementia caregivers.

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Dementia
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Connecting Through Caregiving; Other: Basic Skills Building

Detailed Description

Dementia caregiving presents a particular challenge wherein the adult child is parenting his or her parents. Facilitating relational insights, the key components of the Connecting Through Caregiving (CTC) intervention involves the following: 1) enhancing self-awareness of the caregiver, 2) developing interpersonal empathy of the care-recipient, 3) help-seeking, 4) balancing self-care and caring for others and 5) negotiating action plans. The CTC intervention is be evaluated against a basic skill training intervention consisting of scheduling pleasant events, communicating with the care recipient and other family members. Dementia caregivers providing at least 14 hours of care per week to a parent living with dementia are recruited and randomized into one the two conditions. The intervention lasts for six weeks for both conditions. Intervention in the first week consists of a home visit and a telephone follow-up. From the second to fifth week, there are weekly four telephone phone sessions. In the sixth week, there were two more telephone calls to consolidate the intervention and to review implementation plans.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 80
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Joey Chan, Master; Phone Number: 852-2766-5504; Email: joey.cyc.chan@polyu.edu.hk

Study Locations

• Hong Kong
  • Kowloon, Hong Kong
    • Recruiting
    • Institute of Active Ageing
    • Contact: Alma Au, PhD; Phone Number: 7746 852-2766-7746; Email: alma.au@polyu.edu.hk

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• The study participants will be primary caregivers aged 18 or older and who have been caring for persons (aged 60 or above) with a physician diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in the mild to moderate range as determined by the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale.
• Primary caregivers are those who have been providing unpaid care for more than 14 hours a week for at least the past three months.
• The care should involve day-to-day decision-making as well as any of the following: feeding, dressing, bathing, toileting, housework, preparing meals, medication and handling finances.
• They can be daughter/son or daughter-/son-in-law of the care recipients.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Exclusion criteria are as follows: signs of severe intellectual deficits, demonstrated suicidal ideation, exhibited evidence of psychotic disorders, hearing/ visual impairment or inability to read or speak Chinese/Cantonese fluently and severe.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Triple

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Connecting Through Caregiving; This arm focuses on perspective-taking reappraisal procedures.	Behavioral: Connecting Through Caregiving; The Connecting Through Caregiving intervention focuses on reappraisal exercises on intergeneration relationships in caregiving, involving the following: 1) enhancing self-awareness of the caregiver, 2) developing interpersonal empathy for the care-recipient, 3) help-seeking in caregiving, 4) balancing self-care and caring and 5) negotiating action plans.
Other: Basic Skills Building; This arm focuses on skill building.	Other: Basic Skills Building; Skill building involves: 1) monitoring activities, 2) pleasant event scheduling, 3) communicating with the care recipient, 4) communicating with family members and 5) review implementation

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Life Satisfaction (LS): scale	Each response was rated from to 7 on each of the 5 items of the scale with higher score indicating higher level of life satisfaction	Change from Baseline LS through study completion, an average of 2 months
Change in Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depressive Scale (CESD)	Each response was rated from 0 to 3 on a scale of the frequency of the occurrence of the symptom in the past week. Higher scores would suggest a higher	Change from Baseline CESD through study completion, an average of 2 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI)	Each of the 22 items required the caregiver to rate on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (nearly always).	Change from Baseline ZBI through study completion, an average of 2 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Alma Au, {PhD, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 9, 2017
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): December 31, 2020
• Study Completion (Anticipated): December 31, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 8, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 23, 2017
• First Posted (Estimate): January 24, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 16, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 12, 2019
• Last Verified: January 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Caregiving; Intergeneration; Reappraisal
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Brain Diseases; Central Nervous System Diseases; Nervous System Diseases; Neurocognitive Disorders; Dementia
• Other Study ID Numbers: AFC2016

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No