Intervention for depression among palliative care patients and their families: A study protocol for evaluation of a training program for professional care staff

BMC Palliative Care

Study Protocol

Kuruvilla George¹  Marita P McCabe²  David J Hallford²  Tanya E Davison²  Denisa L Goldhammer²  David Mellor²  Shane Storer³ 

[1] Eastern Health, Peter James Centre, Mahoneys Road, 3131, Forest Hill, VIC, Australia;School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Hwy, 3125, Burwood, VIC, Australia;South West Health, Warrnambool Campus, Ryot St, 3280, Warrnambool, VIC, Australia;

关键词: Palliative Care;    Depressed Patient;    Care Staff;    Palliative Care Service;    Palliative Care Patient;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-684X-10-11

 received in 2011-03-10, accepted in 2011-06-13,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundClinical depression is highly prevalent yet under-detected and under-treated in palliative care settings and is associated with a number of adverse medical and psychological outcomes for patients and their family members. This article presents a study protocol to evaluate a training intervention for non-physician palliative care staff to improve the recognition of depression and provide support for depressed patients and their family members. Details of the hypotheses and expected outcomes, study design, training program development and evaluation measures are described.Methods and DesignA randomised controlled trial will be implemented across two palliative care services to evaluate the "Training program for professional carers to recognise and manage depression in palliative care settings". Pre-, post- and three-month follow-up data will be collected to assess: the impact of the training on the knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy and perceived barriers of palliative care staff when working with depression; referral rates for depression; and changes to staff practices. Quantitative and qualitative methods, in the form of self-report questionnaires and interviews with staff and family members, will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention.DiscussionThis study will determine the effectiveness of an intervention that aims to respond to the urgent need for innovative programs to target depression in the palliative care setting. The expected outcome of this study is the validation of an evidence-based training program to improve staff recognition and appropriate referrals for depression, as well as improve psychosocial support for depressed patients and their family members.Trial RegistrationAustralia and New Zealand Clinical Trials Register (ANZCTR): ACTRN12610000183088

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Hallford et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. 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.