Abstract
Objectives: Spouses are at risk of poor psychosocial outcomes following placement of their partner with dementia into long-term care. The Residential Care Transition Module (RCTM) is a psychosocial intervention developed in the United States to support carers post-placement. This study aimed to test the RCTM delivered by telephone to Australian spousal carers. Methods: A small-scale RCT [N = 21] was conducted to test feasibility of recruitment, retention, acceptability, and preliminary effects on measures of stress, grief, depression, guilt, quality-of-life, and satisfaction with care, compared to a group receiving printed information. Results: The Transition Counselor and study participants considered the intervention delivery, dose, and content as acceptable. Retention was high (91%). At follow-up, significant time effects were found for stress, depression and “nursing home hassles.” A significant interaction effect was found for quality-of-life in favor of the comparison group. No effects were found for guilt or overall grief, however a promising result regarding the sub-scale of “acceptance of loss” was found in favor of the RCTM. Conclusions: The delivery of the RCTM to Australian spousal carers was feasible and acceptable. Clinical implications: The RCTM shows potential for improving support to spouses of people with dementia following long-term care placement.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1130-1143 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Clinical Gerontologist |
Volume | 45 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Dr. Gaugler was supported by grant R01 AG048931 from the National Institute on Aging.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Keywords
- Dementia
- long-term care
- psychosocial intervention
- spousal carers
- transition
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't