SHARE for Persons With Chronic Conditions and Their Family Caregivers

Support, Health, Activities, Resources, and Education for Persons With Chronic Conditions and Their Family Caregivers: SHARE-Chronic Conditions (SHARE-CC)

SHARE-CC is an intervention for families facing the challenges of chronic conditions. SHARE-CC (Support, Help, Activities, Resources, and Education) addresses the need for both members of a care dyad to be actively involved in current and future care planning. This intervention aims to increase knowledge of services, improve communication skills and well-being, and facilitate the understanding of care values and preferences in order to create a mutually agreed upon care plan. This intervention will be tested in a randomized control trial.

This project offers a unique and timely opportunity to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of the SHARE-Chronic Conditions psycho-social intervention. The project will adapt the SHARE intervention, for use with dyads facing the challenges of chronic conditions. The six-session SHARE-CC program will be implemented and evaluated using a randomized controlled trial with 240 participants in northern Ohio, the San Diego and San Francisco Bay areas in California, and New Jersey.

The SHARE-CC intervention addresses the need for a structured approach that targets both members of a care dyad and empowers them to be actively involved in current and future care planning. It has great potential to not only improve psychosocial outcomes for families, but to also impact healthcare decision-making and utilization.

Persons with chronic conditions and their caregivers will be interviewed prior to (Time 1) and after participating (approximately 4 months post-Time 1) in the SHARE-CC intervention or PWCC control group.

Inclusion Criteria:

PWCC:

• Living in geographic area of organizations delivering service
• Living at home rather than in an institutional setting
• Have a family CG as defined below
• Confirmed diagnosis of at least one chronic illness (e.g., heart disease, diabetes, COPD, arthritis, kidney disease, stroke, HIV-AIDS, etc.)
• Require assistance with two or more activities of daily living (e.g., shopping, managing medications, dressing) or receives help with complex medical care tasks (e.g., wound care, preparing special meals); and
• Short Blessed error score between 0 and 6 demonstrating normal cognitive function.

For CGs to be eligible

• must be the PWCC's spouse/partner, adult child, in-law, grandchild, step-child, or other close family member who has or will have primary responsibility for providing assistance to the PWCC

Exclusion Criteria:

• Out of geographic areas
• a primary diagnosis of a neurocognitive disorder (e.g. Alzheimer's Disease or related dementia)
• a mental health condition (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression)
• a traumatic brain injury,
• intellectual or developmental disability
• individuals experiencing extreme difficulty adjusting and coping to the diagnosis
• individuals in the terminal phase of a chronic condition (i.e., eligible for Hospice).