Abstract
Introduction: Care providers consistently report negative consequences to their mental health as a direct result of their caregiving responsibilities. Specifically, they describe higher levels of distress, mental health problems, and depressive symptoms compared to their non-caregiving matched controls. Powerful Tools for Caregivers (PTC) is a national program that aims to empower caregivers to better care for themselves and enhance their self-efficacy. The purpose of the present study was to determine and quantify the effectiveness of the PTC program through pre/post data analysis. Methods: PTC intervention was evaluated at two questionnaire time points: pre-PTC and post-PTC between June 30, 2004 and Oct 16, 2013. Paired sample t-tests (n=409) were conducted using SPSS Statistics Version 22 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results: PTC increased caregivers who conducted self-care behaviors, who demonstrated self-efficacy, management of depressing emotions and those who used community resources. Conclusion: PTC results in caregivers reporting that they are taking better care of themselves, reacting to their emotions in a healthier manner, gaining more confidence in their caregiving abilities and coping skills, and becoming more knowledgeable about receiving assistance from their community resources.
Highlights
Care providers consistently report negative consequences to their mental health as a direct result of their caregiving responsibilities
The Powerful Tools for Caregivers (PTC) program and all materials were developed over 3 years of pilot testing, refinement, and evaluative research at Legacy Caregiver Services in Portland, Oregon and is based on the Chronic Disease SelfManagement Program developed at Stanford University.[2]
After six weeks of Powerful Tools classes, caregivers showed an increase in their total time spent performing stress management or relaxation techniques (Table 2)
Summary
Care providers consistently report negative consequences to their mental health as a direct result of their caregiving responsibilities. Powerful Tools for Caregivers (PTC) is a national program that aims to empower caregivers to better care for themselves and enhance their self-efficacy. Results: PTC increased caregivers who conducted self-care behaviors, who demonstrated self-efficacy, management of depressing emotions and those who used community resources. Conclusion: PTC results in caregivers reporting that they are taking better care of themselves, reacting to their emotions in a healthier manner, gaining more confidence in their caregiving abilities and coping skills, and becoming more knowledgeable about receiving assistance from their community resources. The PTC course is a group psychoeducational skill-building intervention that aims to empower caregivers to better care for themselves and enhance their self-efficacy. In 2009, PTC received the Network of Multicultural Aging Excellence Award from the American Society on Aging/AARP
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