- Title
- Reducing the psychological distress of family caregivers of home based palliative care patients: longer term effects from a randomised controlled trial
- Creator
- Hudson, Peter; Trauer, Tom; Kelly, Brian; O'Connor, Moira; Thomas, Kristina; Zordan, Rachel; Summers, Michael
- Relation
- NHMRC.447717 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/447717
- Relation
- Psycho-Oncology Vol. 24, Issue 1, p. 19-24
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pon.3610
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- Background: Palliative care incorporates comprehensive support of family caregivers because many of them experience burden and distress. However, evidence-based support initiatives are few. Purpose: We evaluated a one-to-one psychoeducational intervention aimed at mitigating the distress of caregivers of patients with advanced cancer receiving home-based palliative care. We hypothesised that caregivers would report decreased distress as assessed by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Method: A randomised controlled trial comparing two versions of the delivery of the intervention (one face-to-face home visit plus telephone calls versus two visits) plus standard care to a control group (standard care only) across four sites in Australia. Results: Recruitment to the one visit condition was 57, the two visit condition 93, and the control 148. We previously reported non-signi fi cant changes in distress between times 1 (baseline) and 2 (1-week post-intervention) but signifi cant gains in competence and preparedness. We report here changes in distress between times 1 and 3 (8-week post-death). There was significantly less worsening in distress between times 1 and 3 in the one visit intervention group than in the control group; however, no significant difference was found between the two visit intervention and the control group. Conclusions: These results are consistent with the aim of the intervention, and they support existing evidence demonstrating that relatively short psychoeducational interventions can help family caregivers who are supporting a dying relative. The sustained benefit during the bereavement period may also have positive resource implications, which should be the subject of future inquiry.
- Subject
- psychological distress; family caregivers; palliative care; randomised controlled trial
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1335545
- Identifier
- uon:27452
- Identifier
- ISSN:1057-9249
- Rights
- © 2014 The Authors. Psycho-Oncology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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