The effectiveness of telehealth for a caregiver wellness program.

Introduction: This study compared outcomes of a telehealth and in-person delivered caregiver wellness program called Powerful Tools for Caregivers (PTC).

Methods: A total of 11 pairs of PTC class leaders delivered in-person and telehealth PTC classes. Caregiver participants completed a health-related questionnaire one week before, one week after, and six months after completing the program. A split-plot, mixed-design analysis of variance (ANOVA) and tests were used to examine attendance and health-related outcome measures: depression as measured by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale-Revised (CESD-R), caregiver experience as measured by the Bakas Caregiving Outcomes scale (BCOS), caregiver self-efficacy, and number of negative self-care behaviors.

Results: A total of 72 caregivers attended PTC in-person and 42 attended via telehealth.Mean attendance was 4.97 ± 1.21 for the in-person group and 5.21 ± 0.071 for the telehealth group, with no significant difference between delivery formats t(112) = 1.074,  = 0.285; 23 caregivers completed all three assessment periods for ANOVA. Interaction of group and time was non-significant for all outcome measures and the main effect of group was only significant for CESD-R scores at pre-PTC assessment, indicating that there were no differences between the two delivery formats for outcomes at post test or six months. The effect of time was significant for all outcome measures, indicating both in-person and telehealth participants improved on health-related outcomes over time.

Discussion: Telehealth is an effective delivery format for PTC - a traditionally in-person caregiver wellness program. This trial was registered [ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03800238].