Can We Hit Two Birds with One Stone: An Effectiveness Study of Peer-support Groups for Low-income Spousal and Adult Children Caregivers of Hong Kong Older Adults

ABSTRACT

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of peer support groups for low-income older adults’ caregivers in the Hong Kong community. It compares the effectiveness of peer support groups on spouse and adult children caregivers. The peer support program was structured into three stages, including six training sessions for peer specialists, eight caregiver support group sessions, and non-structured informal contact. The study adopted a quasi-experiment design supplemented with qualitative data collected from focused group interviews. It involved a user group of 58 participants and a control group of 42 participants. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected before, after the peer support groups, and at a three-month follow-up. The quantitative results showed that the peer support program was more effective in promoting social support for adult children caregivers but not for spousal caregivers. Three focus group interviews suggested that the community-based peer-support group could be helpful to improve stress management, emotional regulation skills, and social networks of the caregivers. Based on the research findings, we discuss the various needs of spousal and adult children caregivers, provide recommendations for service providers and practitioners to consider homogenous group services to address the diverse needs of spousal and adult children caregivers.

KEYWORDS:

• Peer-support
• spousal caregivers
• adult children caregivers
• older adults
• social support

Acknowledgments

This research study was supported by the Salvation Army, Hong Kong. However, the findings and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of the supporting agency. The authors would like to thank the organization, the social workers and the caregiver participants of the study for their valuable contributions.

The Committee on the Use of Human and Animal Subjects in Teaching and Learning of the Hong Kong Baptist University has approved the research ethics of this study.

Author contributions

D.H.R. Zhou drafted the proposal for funding, planned study, collected and analyzed the quantitative data, wrote and finalized the paper

S.L. Hung participated in the research design and proposal writing, collected and analyzed the qualitative part of the data, contributed to writing up discussion and editing the paper.

T.L.T. Lo helped with literature review, re-analyzed the data, making tables and other manuscript related preparation

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that we do not have interest conflict.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded and supported by the Salvation Army (Hong Kong). However, the findings and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of the organization.