Effect of a home‐visit intervention on emotional well‐being for ethnic minority dementia family caregivers: Use of mindful breathing and compassionate listening

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundCaregiving burden and depressive symptoms among ethnic minority family caregivers with limited English proficiency (LEP) caring for persons with dementia (PWDs) in the United States negatively affect their health status and quality of life. The purpose of this study was to provide a home‐visit intervention that was culturally appropriate and language specific delivered by community health workers (CHWs) using mindful breathing and compassionate listening to these caregivers to reduce their burden, depressive symptoms, and negative affect (NA) and improve positive affect (PA).MethodsThe study design used a pre and post intervention by bilingual CHWs visiting participants’ home weekly for a month. CHWs demonstrated compassionate listening of the caregivers’ concerns and issues about caring for PWDs. In addition, CHWs taught the caregivers to practice mindful breathing several times a day as needed that has been shown to reduce anxiety. Burden, depressive symptoms, PA and NA were measured at baseline and after the 4‐week intervention. Wilcoxon signed‐rank tests were used to examine the difference in each outcome.ResultsTwenty‐five ethnic caregivers recruited from local community centers participated (8 Latino, 8 Korean, and 9 Vietnamese; 11 spouses and 14 offspring caregivers). All participants completed the intervention. The English proficiency of participants was 1.3/5 (SD=.91); 20% (5 of 25) reported they cannot speak English at all. Ethnic group differences on outcomes were not significant allowing for pooling of the data. Burden was significantly reduced (Mpre = 49.44 ±16.07, Mpost = 41.88 ±17.46, p=.008) and depressive symptoms decreased but were not significant (p=.091). The PA was significantly improved (Mpre=3.09±1.0, Mpost=3.60±1.0, p=.025) but not the NA (p=.090).ConclusionsThese findings show the potential to reduce caregiving burden and improve positive affect in ethnic minority dementia family caregivers receiving home visits by bilingual CHWs. Caregivers had the opportunity to express their concerns and issues freely to CHWs who demonstrated compassionate listening and taught them mindful breathing. Larger scale studies should be conducted to examine long‐term outcomes to improve ethnic minority dementia caregivers’ emotional well‐being.