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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2024
Internet-based interventions have been explored for their potential to minimize the negative outcomes of caring, accounting for their convenient delivery, ubiquity, potential scalability and presumed (cost) effectiveness. A new online training and support programme for dementia caregivers was recently created by the World Health Organization and culturally adapted to European-Portuguese. The programme (iSupport) was developed to prevent or minimize the negative psychological effects of providing informal care to a person with dementia and relies on problem-solving and cognitive behavioural therapy techniques.
To study the usability and feasibility of the European-Portuguese version of iSupport (iSupport- Portugal).
The usability study was aimed at collecting data on user satisfaction and requirements on the programme's contents and interface. A mixed-methods design consisted of focus groups discussion and usability test sessions with informal caregivers (N=17) and health/social support professionals (N=13). The pilot study followed a mixed-methods experimental parallel between-group design with two arms (iSupport, N=21 and e-book, N=21).
The usability tests show a success rate superior to 80% in completing tasks within the platform and an excellent perception of the program's usability (M= 89.5 on the System Usability Scale). The feasibility study allowed to explore usage data for iSupport-Portugal (e.g., lessons visited, time on sessions) and explore how the intervention and control arms compare over time (baseline, 3 and 6 months after) on well-being outcomes. For a per-protocol analysis, significant group-by-time interaction effects favouring the intervention were found for anxiety (Wald χ2=6.17, p=.046) and for environmental QoL (Wald χ2=7.06, p=.029). Interviewees with the intervention arm (N=12) revealed positive impacts of iSupport on knowledge and on experiencing positive feelings.
The usability and feasibility studies of iSupport-Portugal suggest that this is a promising resource to support informal dementia caregivers. Lessons were learned on the ethical, technological, and research-related challenges for online interventions.
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