Exploration of an Online Education Program to Support Caregivers' Knowledge Transfer
ConditionDementia
Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phasePhase 1
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age18+
SponsorTexas Christian University
About this trial
The overarching goal of this work is to determine methods that improve caregiver education about the behavioral and psychological symptoms (BPSD) of dementia. The specific goal of this project is to extend our prior work to evaluate the impact of our educational intervention on caregivers' ability to transfer knowledge about the management of ADRD to real-world applied examples.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
informal caregivers
18+ years old
Read and speak English
free of cognitive impairments that prevent consent and/or completing experimental tasks
Disqualifiers
professional caregivers
former caregivers who are not currently caring for someone living with dementia
caregivers providing assistance to someone with normal cognition
Trial design
Design model
Crossover
Treatments tested in this trial
Structured Retrieval Practice (SRP)
BehavioralParticipants will complete self-paced practice tests for the 4 categories assigned to the SRP intervention. Specifically, the practice test will consist of 24 total questions: 6 multiple-choice questions for each of the 4-categories - 3 questions on triggers and 3 questions on symptom management. Each question will have 1 correct answer and 3 incorrect lures. The vertical order of responses on the screen will be randomized per participant. Questions will be presented in a blocked fashion such that participants will answer all 6 questions in one category (e.g., anxiety), in a random order, before moving to the next (e.g., hallucinations). After each multiple-choice answer, participants will receive detailed, corrective feedback. They will self-pace their study of feedback. Participants will complete 3 practice retrieval blocks.
Treatment groups
60 Participants
are divided into 1 treatment groupGroup A: Within-participant design with 2 learning conditions: intervention and reading controlExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Immediate near transfer test performance
proportion correct on the immediate (approx. 10 min retention interval) test of near transfer. The test will include 48 questions and will be fill-in-the-blank format. Performance will be explored via percent correct on the test and magnitude of the retrieval practice effect on the test.
Time frame
10 minutes post-intervention (session 1)2
immediate applied transfer test performance
proportion correct on the immediate (approx. 10 min retention interval) test to apply examples of symptoms of ADRD. The test will include 8 questions and be short-answer format. Performance will be explored via percent correct on the test and magnitude of the retrieval practice effect on the test.
Time frame
approx. 10 minutes post-intervention (session 1)3
Delayed Near Transfer test performance
proportion correct on the final 2-day delayed test of near transfer. The test will include 48 questions and will be fill-in-the-blank format. Performance will be explored via percent correct on the test, magnitude of the retrieval practice effect on the test, and amount of forgetting.
Time frame
2 days post-intervention (session 2)4
Delayed Applied Transfer test performance
proportion correct on the final 2-day delayed test of transfer to apply examples of symptoms of ADRD. The test will include 8 questions and be short-answer format. Performance will be explored via percent correct on the test, magnitude of the retrieval practice effect on the test, and amount of forgetting.
Time frame
2 days post-intervention (session 2)Secondary outcomes
1
Delayed knowledge test performance
proportion correct on the final 2-day delayed test of symptoms of ADRD. The test will include 48 questions and will be in multiple-choice format. Performance will be explored via percent correct on the test, magnitude of the retrieval practice effect on the test, and amount of forgetting.
Time frame
2 days post-intervention (session 2)2
Immediate knowledge test performance
proportion correct on the immediate (approx. 10 min retention interval) test of symptoms of ADRD. The test will include 48 questions and will be in multiple-choice format. Performance will be explored via percent correct on the test, magnitude of the retrieval practice effect on the test, and amount of forgetting.
Time frame
10 minutes post-intervention (session 1)3
Medical Health Knowledge
Participants will complete the Medical Term Recognition Test (METER, Rawson et al., 2010). The METER is completed on paper. A list of 40 medical words and 40 nonwords are presented. Participants read the list of items and select the ones that they recognize as real words. Participants are instructed not to guess and to only select items they are sure were real words. Performance on the METER is calculated as the number of words correctly recognized.
Time frame
2 days post-intervention (session 2)4
Demographic Characteristics
age, gender, education level, race/ethnicity, first generation status, member of an underrepresented group, native language, socioeconomic status, occupation, zip code, relationship with individual living with Alzheimer's Disease or a related dementia (e.g., child, spouse), caregiving status and duration of caregiving, and information seeking about dementia and caregiving.
Time frame
Baseline and 2 days laterOther outcomes
1
Verification of Alzheimer's Disease or Related Dementia (ADRD)
Verification of ADRD symptoms for each caregiver's person living with dementia (PLwD) is critical to confirm authentic caregiving. We will use the Ascertain Dementia 8 (AD8; Galvin et al., 2005), a validated informant interview sensitive to early cognitive change with strong predictive accuracy (AUC = .83), diagnostic accuracy (AUC = .92; Chen et al., 2018), and cross-cultural validation (Dominguez et al., 2021; Ismail et al., 2021; Meguro et al., 2015). The 3-minute interview will be conducted in-person or via video call. Caregivers answer 8 questions (e.g., Has there been a change in the last several years caused by cognitive (thinking and memory) problems? Have there been problems with judgments (e.g., falls for scams, bad financial decisions, buys gifts inappropriate for recipients) in the last several years?) by responding, yes, no, or N/A (don't know). Scores (0-8) sum affirmative responses; higher scores indicate more impairment. A cutoff ≥ 2 indicates high probability of carin
Time frame
participant screening, pre-interventionSponsors and contacts
Click on the lead sponsor to view all of their trials.
Source ClinicalTrials.gov