The effectiveness of a life story program on stress reduction among chinese american family caregivers of older adults

ABSTRACT

The study aims to examine the effectiveness of a life story program on reducing Chinese American family caregivers’ stress due to the burden of caregiving. This study conducted a quasi-experimental pre-posttest research design. A simple one-way ANOVA was performed to test the significance of the intervention on caregivers’ burden. The life story was not found to be directly statistically significant on reducing burden. However, through the life story intervention, it was discovered that among Chinese American family caregivers their perceived lower dependency of the care receiver, fewer needs of the care receiver and unknown time frame of continuation of care were statistically significant on the burden scale. The life story intervention improved family caregivers’ insight and judgment on the effect that care receivers’ needs and demands had on their continuation of caregiving.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Suling Luo, Lanying Weng, and Nancy Weng for recruiting participants and conducting life stories; Melissa Gorton, L.C.S.W. for consultation on developing life story modules and training guide; Isabel Ching, L.M.S.W. and Mary Springer for their support and assistance; the Chinese family caregivers who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by a research grant Health and Human Services RFP (2016-17) and Chancellor’s Research Fellowship (2016-17) from the City University of New York.