Kwok Ian, Lattie Emily Gardiner, Yang Dershung, Summers Amanda, Grote Veronika, Cotten Paul, Moskowitz Judith Tedlie
Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States.
BrightOutcome Inc., Buffalo Grove, IL, United States.
JMIR Aging. 2023 Sep 6;6:e46269. doi: 10.2196/46269.
BACKGROUND: The responsibilities of being a primary caregiver for a loved one with dementia can produce significant stress for the caregiver, leading to deleterious outcomes for the caregiver's physical and psychological health. Hence, researchers are developing eHealth interventions to provide support for caregivers. Members of our research team previously developed and tested a positive emotion regulation intervention that we delivered through videoconferencing, in which caregiver participants would meet one-on-one with a trained facilitator. Although proven effective, such delivery methods have limited scalability because they require significant resources in terms of cost and direct contact hours. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to conduct a pilot test of a socially enhanced, self-guided version of the positive emotion regulation intervention, Social Augmentation of Self-Guided Electronic Delivery of the Life Enhancing Activities for Family Caregivers (SAGE LEAF). Studies have shown that social presence or the perception of others in a virtual space is associated with enhanced learning and user satisfaction. Hence, the intervention leverages various social features (eg, discussion boards, podcasts, videos, user profiles, and social notifications) to foster a sense of social presence among participants and study team members. METHODS: Usability, usefulness, feasibility, and acceptability data were collected from a pilot test in which participants (N=15) were given full access to the SAGE LEAF intervention over 6 weeks and completed preintervention and postintervention assessments (10/15, 67%). Preliminary outcome measures were also collected, with an understanding that no conclusions about efficacy could be made, because our pilot study did not have a control group and was not sufficiently powered. RESULTS: The results suggest that SAGE LEAF is feasible, with participants viewing an average of 72% (SD 42%) of the total available intervention web pages. In addition, acceptability was found to be good, as demonstrated by participants' willingness to recommend the SAGE LEAF program to a friend or other caregiver. Applying Pearson correlational analyses, we found moderate, positive correlation between social presence scores and participants' willingness to recommend the program to others (r=0.672; P=.03). We also found positive correlation between social presence scores and participants' perceptions about the overall usefulness of the intervention (r=0.773; P=.009). This suggests that participants' sense of social presence may be important for the feasibility and acceptability of the program. CONCLUSIONS: In this pilot study, the SAGE LEAF intervention demonstrates potential for broad dissemination for dementia caregivers. We aim to incorporate participant feedback about how the social features may be improved in future iterations to enhance usability and to further bolster a sense of social connection among participants and study staff members. Next steps include partnering with dementia clinics and other caregiver-serving organizations across the United States to conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention.
背景:作为痴呆症亲人的主要照顾者所承担的责任会给照顾者带来巨大压力,进而对其身心健康产生有害影响。因此,研究人员正在开发电子健康干预措施,以为照顾者提供支持。我们研究团队的成员此前开发并测试了一种通过视频会议提供的积极情绪调节干预措施,在此干预中,照顾者参与者会与一名经过培训的引导者进行一对一交流。尽管已证明该方法有效,但这种交付方式的可扩展性有限,因为它们在成本和直接接触时间方面需要大量资源。 目的:本研究旨在对积极情绪调节干预措施的社交增强型、自我引导版本——家庭照顾者生活提升活动的社交增强型自我引导电子交付(SAGE LEAF)进行试点测试。研究表明,社交临场感或在虚拟空间中对他人的感知与增强学习效果和用户满意度相关。因此,该干预措施利用各种社交功能(如讨论板、播客、视频、用户资料和社交通知)来培养参与者和研究团队成员之间的社交临场感。 方法:从一项试点测试中收集了可用性、有用性、可行性和可接受性数据。在该测试中,参与者(N = 15)在6周内可以完全使用SAGE LEAF干预措施,并完成干预前和干预后的评估(10/15,67%)。还收集了初步结果指标,但我们明白由于我们的试点研究没有对照组且样本量不足,无法得出关于疗效的结论。 结果:结果表明SAGE LEAF是可行的,参与者平均浏览了总可用干预网页的72%(标准差42%)。此外,可接受性良好,参与者愿意向朋友或其他照顾者推荐SAGE LEAF项目就证明了这一点。通过Pearson相关分析,我们发现社交临场感得分与参与者向他人推荐该项目的意愿之间存在中度正相关(r = 0.672;P = 0.03)。我们还发现社交临场感得分与参与者对干预措施总体有用性的看法之间存在正相关(r = 0.773;P = 0.009)。这表明参与者的社交临场感可能对该项目的可行性和可接受性很重要。 结论:在这项试点研究中,SAGE LEAF干预措施显示出向痴呆症照顾者广泛传播的潜力。我们旨在纳入参与者关于如何在未来迭代中改进社交功能以提高可用性并进一步增强参与者和研究人员之间社交联系感的反馈。下一步包括与美国各地的痴呆症诊所和其他为照顾者服务的组织合作,进行一项随机对照试验,以评估该干预措施的有效性。
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