Psychosocial telephone intervention for dementia caregivers: A randomized, controlled trial.

ABSTRACT

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.