Clinical values of solution- focused brief therapy for caregivers of children with type 1 diabetes

Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of solution-focused brief therapy on the care burden, depression and anxiety emotions in the primary caregivers of children with type I diabetes. Methods Totally126 children with type 1 diabetes and 126 primary caregivers were randomly divided into two groups, control group (n=63 pairs) and intervention group (n=63 pairs) using random number table method. And the two groups were given conventional nursing care. For the intervention group, the primary caregivers accepted the solution-focused brief therapy. The Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI), Self- rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and Self- rating Depression Scale (SDS) before and after interventions were compared between the two groups. Results Before intervention, CBI, SAS and SDS were similar between the two groups (P> 0.05). After intervention: the CBI total score and five sessions, ie, time-dependent load, development-limited load, physiological load, social load, and emotional load of the intervention group were (42.78 ± 11.44), (15.74 ± 3.97), (10.76 ± 2.14), (6.85 ± 1.09), (6.15 ± 0.95), (3.28 ± 0.56), respectively, which were significantly lower than those of the control group (51.87 ± 12.20), (17.67 ± 4.76), (12.74 ± 2.58), (8.73 ± 1.13), (7.98 ± 1.26), (4.75 ± 0.75) (t=2.47-12.47, P<0.05). After intervention, the SAS (35.43 ± 9.34) and SDS (42.54 ± 10.24) were significantly reduced for the intervention group compared with the control group (46.52 ± 11.42) and (50.06 ± 12.07) (t=5.66, 4.01, P<0.05). Conclusions Solution-focused brief therapy can effectively decrease the care burden of primary caregivers of children with type 1 diabetes and alleviate their anxiety and depression emotions. Key words: Diabetes, type 1; Children; Primary caregivers; Solution-focused brief therapy