Training nursing home social workers in the Pre‐loss Group Support intervention

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundPre‐loss Group Support (PLGS) is a 10‐session multi‐modal, psychotherapy group intervention administered by nursing home social workers (NH‐SWs) for dementia family care partners (CPs) whose PLWD resides in a nursing home.1 While the overarching purpose of this project is to determine if telehealth‐delivered PLGS reduces risk of poor bereavement outcome in family CPs of PLWD when delivered by NH‐SWs, in this presentation we describe developing and applying the PLGS clinical training for NH‐SWs in this phase of our NIH‐Stage 52 implementation and dissemination study.MethodUsing professional actors, we created a simulated PLGS 10‐session group as a series of training videos. Training utilized our Stage‐3 PLGS Facilitator manual.3 We developed a training curriculum incorporating these video vignettes, didactic content, interactive case examples and pragmatic application concepts of PLGS for telehealth delivery to CPs by NH‐SWs. The full training is deliverable in one full day or two half day sessions and is provided on an interactive distance platform. Training was delivered to two cohorts of NH‐SWs in a stepped‐wedge design.ResultWe are evaluating this implementation study using the RE‐AIM measures.4 In this training phase, we have successfully achieved Reach—defined as buy‐in and training of NH SWs, Adoption—defined as uptake by NHs and SWs, and the first phase of Implementation—Defined as training completion. Trained NH‐SWs were assessed for satisfaction with the training. On a 7‐item satisfaction scale with a range of 3‐21, satisfaction rate was 95% (highly valuable), with 100% indicating they would recommend training to SWs in other facilities. In this session, we will share PLGS training content and procedures.ConclusionNursing home SWs are the last clinicians with opportunity to support CPs as they approach the death of their PLWD in the facility. NH‐SWs have clinical expertise to learn and implement PLGS, allowing us to simultaneously evaluate telehealth SW training acceptability, telehealth delivered PLGS outcomes. Carefully tailoring PLGS training content and delivery for NH‐SWs to equip them for telehealth implementation, engagement to recruit and retain enthusiastic SWs, and available consultation have contributed to the success of this phase in the project.