ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Many family caregivers of people with early stages of dementia experience difficulty in obtaining information on dementia. In addition, adjusting to this new caregiving role is emotionally demanding, thus many family caregivers go thorough a lot of emotional stress. This study tested emotion-focused individual intervention as a way to help family caregivers of early-stage dementia patients obtain necessary information and emotional support related to caregiving. METHODS: To achieve this goal, a quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group design was conducted. Emotion-focused individual intervention was administered to the experimental group (n=15), and no treatment was administered to the control group (n=21). Both groups completed a demographic profile, and also took pre- and post-test measuring their dementia-related knowledge, self-efficacy of care, preparedness of care, and coping strategies of care. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and t-test, and ANCOVA were performed to SPSS program. RESULTS: It was found that there was a statistically significant improvement in dementia-related knowledge (p<.001), self-efficacy of care (p=.030), preparedness of care (p<.001), and coping strategies of care (p<.001) after the intervention. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that emotion-focused individual intervention was effective for family caregivers of patients with early dementia to adjust to the new caregiving role.