An organizing framework for informal caregiver interventions: detailing caregiving activities and caregiver and care recipient outcomes to optimize evaluation efforts.
Abstract
<h4>Background</h4>Caregiver interventions may help improve the quality of informal
care. Yet the lack of a systematic framework specifying the targets and outcomes of
caregiver interventions hampers our ability to understand what has been studied, to
evaluate existing programs, and to inform the design of future programs. Our goal
was to develop an organizing framework detailing the components of the caregiving
activities and the caregiver and care recipient outcomes that should be affected by
an intervention. In so doing, we characterize what has been measured in the published
literature to date and what should be measured in future studies to enable comparisons
across interventions and across time.<h4>Methods</h4>Our data set comprises 121 reports
of caregiver interventions conducted in the United States and published between 2000
and 2009. We extracted information on variables that have been examined as primary
and secondary outcomes. These variables were grouped into categories, which then informed
the organizing framework. We calculated the frequency with which the interventions
examined each framework component to identify areas about which we have the most knowledge
and under-studied areas that deserve attention in future research.<h4>Results</h4>The
framework stipulates that caregiver interventions seek to change caregiving activities,
which in turn affect caregiver and care recipient outcomes. The most frequently assessed
variables have been caregiver psychological outcomes (especially depression and burden)
and care recipient physical and health care use outcomes.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Based
on the organizing framework, we make three key recommendations to guide interventions
and inform research and policy. First, all intervention studies should assess quality
and/or quantity of caregiving activities to help understand to what extent and how
well the intervention worked. Second, intervention studies should assess a broad range
of caregiver and care recipient outcomes, including considering whether expanding
to economic status and health care use of the caregiver can be accommodated, to ease
subsequent economic evaluations of caregiving. Third, intervention studies should
measure a common set of outcomes to facilitate cross-time and cross-study comparisons
of effectiveness.
Type
Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/26164Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1186/1471-2318-11-77Publication Info
Van Houtven, Courtney Harold; Voils, Corrine I; & Weinberger, Morris (2011). An organizing framework for informal caregiver interventions: detailing caregiving
activities and caregiver and care recipient outcomes to optimize evaluation efforts.
BMC geriatrics, 11(1). pp. 77. 10.1186/1471-2318-11-77. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/26164.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Courtney Harold Van Houtven
Professor in Population Health Sciences
Dr. Courtney Van Houtven is a Professor in The Department of Population Health Science,
Duke University School of Medicine and Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy. She
is also a Research Career Scientist in The Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery
and Practice Transformation (ADAPT), Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Dr.
Van Houtven’s aging and economics research interests encompass long-term care financing,
intra-household decision-making, unpaid family and friend car
Corrine Ione Voils
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine
Randomized trials of behavioral interventions; adherence to treatment regimens; spousal
support in chronic disease management, mixed research synthesis; measurement of self-reported
medication nonadherence
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