This study was aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a home-based physical exercise program on participants’ mental health: psychological symptoms, depression, and burden of female informal caregivers.

In a randomized controlled trial, a sample of 48 female informal primary caregivers completed the entire study, 25 were randomly allocated to the intervention group (IG), and 23 participants to the control group (CG).

Participants in the IG performed two 60-minute-long physical exercise sessions per week (36 weeks) that were supervised by a personal trainer at caregivers’ home during 9 months. The CG continued their habitual leisure-time activities.

Subjective burden was assessed by the Zarit Burden Interview. The risk of depression was measured by the Geriatric Depression Scale Short Form 15-item version, and psychological symptoms were evaluated by the Symptom Check List-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). All participants were evaluated at baseline and at the end of the intervention.

A promising positive impact of the intervention on caregivers’ subjective burden and risk of depression was found in the IG. In addition, no significant between-group differences were found in any of nine subscales scores of the SCL-90-R. Finally, care recipients’ level of functional independence and area of residence were found to be predictors of the promising positive impact on caregivers’ subjective burden and risk of depression.

The present home-based physical exercise intervention that was individually implemented has shown promising results to reduce subjective burden and risk of depression in female caregivers of relatives with dementia. However, future research efforts should elucidate both the particular dose of physical exercise and the particular duration of the intervention that are required to obtain the expected significant positive impact. Finally, future inclusion of psychological approaches, besides physical exercise, might help reduce female caregivers’ psychological symptoms.

American Indian children of pre-school age have disproportionally high obesity rates and consequent risk for related diseases. Healthy Children, Strong Families was a family-based randomized trial assessing the efficacy of an obesity prevention toolkit delivered by a mentor v. mailed delivery that was designed and administered using community-based participatory research approaches.

During Year 1, twelve healthy behaviour toolkit lessons were delivered by either a community-based home mentor or monthly mailings. Primary outcomes were child BMI percentile, child BMI Z-score and adult BMI. Secondary outcomes included fruit/vegetable consumption, sugar consumption, television watching, physical activity, adult health-related self-efficacy and perceived health status. During a maintenance year, home-mentored families had access to monthly support groups and all families received monthly newsletters.

Family homes in four tribal communities, Wisconsin, USA.

Adult and child (2–5-year-olds) dyads (n 150).

No significant effect of the mentored v. mailed intervention delivery was found; however, significant improvements were noted in both groups exposed to the toolkit. Obese child participants showed a reduction in BMI percentile at Year 1 that continued through Year 2 (P<0·05); no change in adult BMI was observed. Child fruit/vegetable consumption increased (P=0·006) and mean television watching decreased for children (P=0·05) and adults (P=0·002). Reported adult self-efficacy for health-related behaviour changes (P=0·006) and quality of life increased (P=0·02).

Although no effect of delivery method was demonstrated, toolkit exposure positively affected adult and child health. The intervention was well received by community partners; a more comprehensive intervention is currently underway based on these findings.