Authors (including presenting author) :
Lam YHR(1), Li LF(2), Chang SKR(3), Lam KW(2), Chan KM(3), Yu SK(3), Mo SLS(1) Chan CHC(1), Poon KHH(1)
Affiliation :
(1)Medical Social Services (Hospital Authority), Queen Mary Hospital, (2)Department of Neurosurgery, Queen Mary Hospital, (3)Department of Medicine, Queen Mary Hospital
Introduction :
Caregivers experienced psychological and emotional burden, like overwhelming caregiver role and uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic (J J Lee et. Al, 2021). Hospital Authority activated the Emergency Response Level and stopped visiting arrangement over a year. No direct visit in hospital challenged caregivers on the arrangement of transitional care and community support for patients during hospitalization. These unique difficulties also threaten the increase of caregivers’ mental health burdens. To overcome the service gaps, Early Discharge Support program (EDS) was conducted via telecare by medical social workers and clinical teams.
Objectives :
The project aimed to reduce the caring distress through early caregiver empowerment and social support.
Methodology :
Patients who admitted stroke or neurosurgical wards in acute hospital and their core family members were recruited to join EDS from August to Nov 2021. Caregivers firstly received an online new patient orientation program on disease management and multi-dimensional supportive services. They were networked to various community resources for continuous support. A quasi-experiment with pretest and posttest design was adopted. Participated caregivers were invited to complete an online questionnaire upon patient admission and one week after patient discharge. Caregiver’s distress was measured by the validated Cantonese short version of the Zarit Burden Interview (C-ZBI) and Patient Health Questionnaire - 2 (PHQ-2) respectively.
Result & Outcome :
42 caregivers completed the pretest and posttest questionnaires. 79% (n=33) of respondents were female. More than 57% (n=24) of caregivers were children whereas 21% (n=9) of them were spouse. There were statistically significant decreases on caring burden from 9.83 to 7.24 (p=.000) by C-ZBI and PHQ-2 was dropped from 2.05 to 1.24 (p=.000).
The project provides valuable findings on intervention strategy to relieve caregiver stress by tele support to neurosurgical and stroke patients during COVID-19 pandemic. Timely disease management education, psychological support, community resources networking via telecare enhance the capacity of caregivers to cope the caring difficulties and mitigate caregivers’ caring burden.
