My story as informal care-giver: a randomized controlled trial

Approximately 750,000 people provide informal care in the Netherlands for more than three months and more than eight hours a week. These informal care-givers run a high risk of psychological problems such as depression or burnout. At the moment, however, no preventive interventions with proven effectiveness are available to informal care-givers in the Netherlands. On the basis of a scientific theoretical model that explains the development of psychological problems among informal care-givers, a new preventive intervention – the informal care-givers in Balance course - has been developed for adult children who provide informal care for their parents. The life review method, a systematic evaluation of one’s own life, plays a central role in the intervention. This method is being used for the first time to address the problems of informal care-givers. An initial regional pilot project demonstrates the positive result of the intervention, i.e. a significant decrease in the perceived stress of informal care-givers. The proposal is to now develop the intervention nation-wide and on a larger scale and to more comprehensively examine the effects.

The new preventive intervention will lead to a significant decrease in psychological problems and perceived stress, an improvement in the quality of life of the informal care-givers as compared with a waiting list control group.

The Informal care-givers in Balance course consists of eight two-hour sessions and is designed for adult children who provide structural care for a parent in need of care and are under high perceived stress as a result. At the first three sessions, the participants learn to interview their own parent according to the life review method. Starting at the fourth session of the course, the perspective shifts to the informal care-givers’ own life. The informal care-givers focus on the meaning and effects, especially undesirable ones, of the informal care on their lives and on the balance they would like to establish in their lives in accordance with the life review method. The possibilities are addressed for introducing a better balance