Helping Invested Families Improve Veterans Experiences Study

Summary

The purpose of this study is to evaluate a caregiver skill training program (HI-FIVES), offered as a part of a randomized control trial to caregivers of Veterans referred to home and community-based long-term care. Of primary interest is to examine whether participating in HI-FIVES leads to clinically significant increases in days spent at home for Veterans compared to caregivers in usual care. The investigators aim, through the training, to decrease the number of days over 12 months post-intervention that Veterans spend in the emergency department, hospital, or nursing home. Days spent in these settings reduces the Veteran's quality of life and increases health care costs to the VA. The investigators also will evaluate whether caregivers in HI-FIVES have clinically significant reductions in depressive symptoms post-intervention compared to caregivers in usual care.

Conditions

• Caregiver
• Disabled Veterans
• Referred to Long-term Care
• Residing at Home
• Hospice Ineligible

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Helping Invested Families Improve Veterans Experiences - Control

Usual care will be the Veteran patient care and caregiver support that are normally offered once the Geriatrics and Extended Care (GEC) referral process has occurred. This process entails the patient and caregiver work with the social worker assigned to the patient to obtain home and community based care (HCBC) services. The patients in the usual care group will be free to seek medical, psychological, social support, and social services that are available through VAMCs or any other source. In addition to this, caregivers in the usual care arm will be told about the caregiver support programs in the VHA and the caregiver will receive the national VA caregiver hotline phone number. The information provided mirrors efforts to support caregivers in the VA nationally and new standards of care for VA caregivers. This will be the only contact with the usual care subjects besides the scheduled data collection assessments.

BEHAVIORAL

Helping Invested Families Improve Veterans Experiences - HI FIVES

In addition to the usual care activities outline in the Control arm, Caregivers in the HI-FIVES group will receive three individual calls with a nurse educator to address topics he/she identified as being the highest priority learning areas. The calls will be tailored to the individual needs of Veteran-caregiver dyad. After the phone calls, caregivers will participate in four evidence-based group sessions aimed to improve clinical care skills, psychological care skills, and support-seeking skills. The curriculum will be delivered by a trained nurse educator and the PI and VA Caregiver Support Staff. The sessions will be targeted to address common needs of Veterans and their caregivers. After the final group session, there will be two optional booster calls at one and three months. Four assessments in all will be collected, baseline (in person), and at 3, 9, and 15 months (by phone).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• VA Office of Research and Development

  lead FED

Principal Investigators

• Courtney H Van Houtven, PhD · Durham VA Medical Center, Durham, NC

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2014-02-05

Primary Completion

2017-01-10

Completion

2017-12-29

Countries

• United States

Study Locations