The necessity for sustainable intervention effects: lessons-learned from an experience sampling intervention for spousal carers of people with dementia

Abstract

Objectives

Caring for a person with dementia can be challenging over the years. To support family carers throughout their entire caregiving career, interventions with a sustained effectivity are needed. A novel 6-week mobile health (mHealth) intervention using the experience sampling method (ESM) showed positive effects on carers’ well-being over a period of 2 months after the intervention. In this study, the effects after 6 months of the selfsame intervention were examined to evaluate the sustainability of positive intervention effects.

Method

The 6-week mHealth intervention consisted of an experimental group (ESM self-monitoring and personalized feedback), a pseudo-experimental group (ESM self-monitoring without feedback), and a control group (providing regular care without ESM self-monitoring or feedback). Carers’ sense of competence, mastery, and psychological complaints (depression, anxiety and perceived stress) were evaluated pre- and post-intervention as well as at two follow-up time points. The present study focuses on the 6-month follow-up data (n = 50).

Results

Positive intervention effects on sense of competence, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms were not sustained over 6-month follow-up.

Conclusion

The benefits of this mHealth intervention for carers of people living with dementia were not sustained over a long time. Similarly, other psychosocial interventions for carers of people with dementia rarely reported long-lasting effects. In order to sustainably contribute to carers’ well-being, researchers and clinicians should continuously ensure flexible adjustment of the intervention and consider additional features such as ad-hoc counseling options and booster sessions. In this regard, mHealth interventions can offer ideally suited and unique opportunities.

Keywords:

• Sustainability
• mHealth intervention
• carer
• dementia
• experience sampling method

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the participants taking part in this research. Furthermore, the authors wish to acknowledge Claudia Smeets for her help during study recruitment and data management.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was mainly funded by the Dutch Alzheimer Society (grant no. WE03-2011-06). Sara Bartels’ contribution was funded by the Marie Curie Innovative Training Network action (ITN) action, H2020-MSCA-ITN-2015, under grant agreement number 676265.