Influence of Counseling Intervention on Enhancement of Awareness and Reducing Burdens among Caregivers of Patients with Alzheimer

Abstract

Background: Alzheimer’s disease is a social care problem and is one of the main causes of disability in later life. Caring for a patient with Alzheimer’s disease is associated with much of the burden on family members Aim of the study This study aimed to investigate the influence of counseling intervention on enhancement of awareness and reducing burdens among caregivers of patients with Alzheimer. Design: A quasiexperimental design was used to conduct the study. Setting: This study was conducted at Out-Patient Clinic of geriatric medical unit Centre in affiliated to Ain shams university hospitals. A purposive sample was obtained included 50 caregivers accompanying their Alzheimer's patient. The data was collected by using three tools: First tool: interviewing questionnaire to assess socio-demographic data of caregivers and clinical history of patients. Second tool: Caregivers' awareness regarding Alzheimer disease to assess the caregivers' knowledge, attitude, and reported practices regarding Alzheimer disease. Third tool: caregivers' burden scale to assess the level of burden among caregivers. Results: The study results revealed that there was a highly statistically significant improvement of caregivers' awareness, reported practices, and total scores of the caregivers’ burdens towards caring for their patients with Alzheimer after implementation of the intervention (p < 0.001). As well there was a highly statistically significant correlation between caregivers' burden and their knowledge, attitudes, and reported practices toward their patients with Alzheimer (p < 0.001). Conclusion: It was concluded that the application of counseling intervention improved caregivers' awareness through enhancing their knowledge, attitudes, and reported practices and reducing their burdens toward their patients with Alzheimer disease. Recommendations: Further studies should be done for family caregivers in their early caring process to optimize their well-being through nursing intervention programme on reducing the degree of burden with improving their ability for solving the problem.