Growing as a Caregiver: Delivering Online Support Program for Informal Caregivers of Dementia Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The outbreak of the COVID-19 has brought unprecedented challenges for people’s daily life, including family caregivers of older adults with dementia. In addition to the multiple difficulties for daily life and health management, in-person services and support programs for cognitive impairment patients and their caregivers have been called a halt due to frequent quarantine requirements. This pilot study examined a Tele-Savvy Caregiver Program (TSCP) provided by six pairs of undergraduate social work students for 36 informal caregivers of dementia patients. In-depth interviews were used to identify the outcome and feedback from both service recipients and service providers of the online intervention program. Results showed that the program significantly reduced the caregivers’ emotional burden by increasing their disease literacy, reflecting caregiver roles, obtaining stress relief techniques, gaining strengths perspective, establishing social support networks, and reducing stigma. The online intervention experience also improved the social work students as service providers’ disease literacy, practice skills, critical thinking, self-esteem and professional confidence, and sense of social responsibility. This study illustrated that social service and support could be delivered online for caregivers of dementia patients during this challenging pandemic time. Meanwhile, the online intervention program could contribute to a meaningful learning experiences for undergraduate social work students. Therefore, the expanding of this online intervention program in larger population might benefit more needy groups. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.