Psychosocial telephone intervention for dementia caregivers: A randomized, controlled trial
Open accessAbstract
Background: Identifying effective and accessible interventions for dementia caregivers is critical as dementia prevalence increases. Objective: Examine the effects of a telephone‐based intervention on caregiver well‐being. Design: Randomized, controlled trial. Setting: Academic medical center. Participants: Two hundred and fifty distressed, family, dementia caregivers. Intervention: Caregivers randomized to receive 16 telephone contacts over 6 months of either the Family Intervention: Telephone Tracking—Caregiver (FITT‐C) or Telephone Support (TS). Outcome: Primary outcome variables were family caregivers' depressive symptoms, burden, and reactions to care recipients' behavior problems at 6 months. Results: The FITT‐C intervention resulted in significantly improved caregiver depressive symptoms (P = .003; 27% net improvement) and less severe reactions to care‐recipient depressive behaviors (P = .009; 29% net improvement) compared with the control condition (TS). Conclusion: An entirely telephone‐based intervention improves caregivers' depressive symptoms and reactions to behavior problems in the care recipient and is comparable with reported results of face‐to‐face interventions.
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From Non-pharmacological Interventions for Caregivers with Depression and Caregivers of Care Recipients with Co-morbid Depression: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (2021) · cites this paper as [65]
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- Authors
- Tremont, G., Davis, J. D., Papandonatos, G. D., Ott, B. R., Fortinsky, R. H., Gozalo, P., Yue, M. S., Bryant, K., Grover, C., & Bishop, D. S.
- Affiliations
- Brown University (US)
- University of Connecticut (US)
- Rhode Island Hospital (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tremont, Geoffrey
- ORCID
- Venue
- Alzheimer's & Dementia
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-07-26
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 541-548
- ISSN
- 1552-5260 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-5279
- PMC
- PMC4306648
- OpenAlex
- W2003963087
- Semantic Scholar
- 5fdc7fcb9d5e6431cd04fc00a4977cce46b78808
- Cited by
- 114
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 6
- FWCI
- 4.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Alzheimer s & Dementia (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Nursing Research (NR010559)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Pharmacy › Nursing care and research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Family Caregiving in Mental Illness
- Keywords
- dementia caregivers, telephone-delivered intervention
- MeSH terms
- Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Dementia, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Interviews as Topic, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Treatment Outcome, Caregivers
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