Counsellors contact dementia caregivers - predictors of utilisation in a longitudinal study

BMC Geriatrics

Research Article

Sonja Wunder¹  Maria Grossfeld-Schmitz²  Carolin Donath²  Elmar Gräßel²  Hilmar Mehlig³  Joerg Lauterberg⁴  Stephan Ruckdaeschel⁵  Rolf Holle⁶  Peter Marx⁷ 

[1] AOK Bavaria - Health insurer, Stromerstraße 5, 90443, Nürnberg, Germany;Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, Psychiatric University Hospital Erlangen, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054, Erlangen, Germany;Eisai GmbH, Lyoner Str. 36, 60528, Frankfurt, Germany;Federal Association of the AOK, Rosenthalerstr. 31, 10178, Berlin, Germany;HealthEcon, Basel, AG, Switzerland;Helmholtz Zentrum München, Institute of Health Economics and Health Care Management, Ingolstädter Landstr. 1, 85764, Neuherberg, Germany;Pfizer Deutschland GmbH, Linkstrasse 10, 10785, Berlin, Germany;

关键词: Dementia;    Personal Contact;    Counselling Service;    Dementia Patient;    Family Counselling;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2318-10-24

 received in 2009-08-14, accepted in 2010-05-14,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCounselling of family members is an established procedure in the support of dementia patients' relatives. In absence of widespread specialised dementia care services in most countries, however, counselling services are often not taken up or only very late in the course of the disease.ObjectIn order to promote acceptance of this service, a new counselling concept was implemented where general practitioners recommended family counsellors, who then actively contacted the family caregivers to offer counselling ("Counsellors Contact Caregivers", CCC). The research questions were: To what extent can the rate of family counselling be increased by CCC? What are the predictors for usage of this form of family counselling?MethodsThe study started in June 2006 in Middle Franconia for patients with mild to moderate dementia. At baseline, 110 family caregivers were offered counselling based on the CCC guideline. Data was analysed from 97 patient-caregiver dyads who received counselling for one year. The mean age of the patients with dementia (67 women and 30 men) was 80.7 years (SD = 6.2). The mean age of their primary family caregivers (68 women, 23 men) was 60.8 years (SD = 13.8).Results35 family members (36%) made use of more extensive counselling (more than one personal contact). By contrast, 29 family members (30%) had no personal contact or only one personal contact (33 cases, 34%). The factors "spouse" (p = .001) and "degree of care" (p = .005) were identified as significant predictors for acceptance of extensive counselling.ConclusionsActively contacting patients and their caregivers is a successful means of establishing early and frequent contact with family members of patients with mild to moderate dementia. Use of extensive counselling is made especially by spouses of patients requiring intensified care.Trial RegistrationISRCTN68329593

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Grossfeld-Schmitz et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.