Enhancing caregivers self-management for their children who require medical technology: A feasibility study for the COPE-STAR intervention.
Regena Spratling, Syeda Zahra Ali, Melissa Spezia Faulkner and 2 others
PMID 38096760WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers of children with tracheostomies and feeding tubes found this web-based symptom and technology management programme useful and easy to use.
However, their confidence, anxiety and depression scores remained essentially unchanged over four weeks.
Key findings
01All 16 caregivers who completed the study rated the intervention as useful, easy to use and acceptable.
02Outcome measures for family management, caregiver beliefs, anxiety and depressive symptoms remained essentially unchanged from baseline to four weeks.
03The study enrolled 22 caregivers but only 16 completed the full intervention, reflecting a 73% retention rate.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was a small feasibility study with no control group, so it cannot determine if the intervention caused any changes. The sample was highly educated and had adequate health literacy, which may not represent all caregivers. Caregivers with less than one year of experience were excluded, so the results do not apply to those newly managing a child's complex care. Baseline scores for caregiver beliefs and family management were already high, and anxiety and depression scores were already low, leaving little room for improvement (a ceiling/floor effect).
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that this intervention fails to help caregivers because outcomes did not change. The participants were experienced caregivers who already had high confidence and low anxiety at baseline, meaning there was little room for improvement to be detected in this small feasibility study.