Pair 2 Care: Peer Support for Caregivers of Black Americans Living With Dementia (Pair 2 Care)

February 11, 2025 updated by: Karen Moss, Ohio State University
The purpose of this study is to test a peer support intervention for caregivers who are caring for a loved one living with dementia.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

African Americans are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease or a related form of dementia (ADRD) than their White counterparts. These individuals are, however, more often diagnosed later, creating additional physical, spiritual, psychosocial challenges for both the person living with ADRD and their family caregivers. African American ADRD caregivers are therefore at greater risk for adverse physiological and psychological health effects of caregiving, including significant burden and stress. Evidence suggests that peer to peer support using storytelling may be effective in assisting ADRD caregivers with surrogate healthcare decision making, an important aspect of palliative care. Access to and use of palliative care, a recognized approach to serious illness care symptom management, among African Americans are low. The impact of this healthcare inequity further reduces the quality of life for African American ADRD caregivers and subsequently their care recipients. Prior approaches to serious illness care have failed to address the needs of African Americans living with ADRD from a palliative care perspective. This inability to meet their needs leads to increased unmet caregiver needs. Peer mentorship, a relationship-centered person-to-person approach may reduce healthcare decision making burden within cultural groups such as African Americans through cultural tailoring by promoting oral traditions, personal contact, and storytelling. Our current study includes perspectives of lower socioeconomic status African American ADRD caregivers who have expressed the need for person-centered, non-judgmental, on-demand, culturally congruent caregiving support for advance care planning and healthcare decision making. Simultaneously, former caregivers retrospectively described perceived benefits of peer support while caregiving and their willingness to serve as peer mentors to current caregivers. Additional data from healthcare provider and community stakeholders support the need and potential benefits of peer support for ADRD caregivers. Based on these preliminary findings, there is an urgent need and exciting opportunity to address the unmet palliative care needs of current caregivers through peer support. For this innovative project, investigators will use the experiential expertise of former caregivers to help current caregivers with advance care planning and healthcare decision making. The purpose of this project is to use a stakeholder-informed approach in further developing and pilot testing the co-created Peer Support for Caregivers of African Americans Living with Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (Pair2Care), a culturally sensitive caregiver peer support intervention.

Aim: Conduct feasibility and acceptability testing of Pair 2 Care in current and trained former African American ADRD family caregiver peers paired based on congruent identity traits (e.g., relationship to care recipient, gender identity, etc.). Investigators will determine if Pair2Care is feasible and acceptable by evaluating satisfaction and appropriateness of the intervention for broader dissemination.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

15

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Ohio
      • Columbus, Ohio, United States, 43210
        • Ohio State University College of Nursing

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • African-American
  • English-speaking
  • Adult (18+)
  • Family caregivers of people living with dementia (current or former)

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Non-African-American
  • Non-English-speaking
  • Under age 18
  • Non-Family caregiver

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Peer Support
Former caregivers will be paired with a current caregivers
Behavioral: Peer Support
Former caregivers will be paired with a current caregiver based on a similar personal attribute (e.g., relationship to care recipient). Each pair will complete at least five virtual face-to-face (video) interactions and at least 10 other interactions either via phone call, email, or text messaging over the 6-month time period.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS SSS)
Time Frame: Baseline and 6 months post baseline
This instrument contains 19 items that comprise 4 subscales: Emotional/Informational Support, Tangible Support, Affectionate Support, and Positive Social Interaction. Each item is scored on a 5 point Likert scale of 1 ("none of the time") to 5 ("all the time"), with higher scores indicating more social support. Total and subscale scores are in a range of 1-5 calculated by taking the mean across items.
Baseline and 6 months post baseline

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Ohio State University

Collaborators

Cambia Health Foundation

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

October 5, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 11, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

July 11, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 26, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 26, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

October 3, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 25, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 11, 2025

Last Verified

February 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2023B0071

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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