NATIONAL FAMILY CAREGIVER SUPPORT PROGRAM: EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN PROCESS AND CLIENT-REPORTED EFFECTIVENESS

摘要

This study investigates the relationship between a program process of the National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP) and client-reported effectiveness of caregiver services. The study sample includes survey response data from 43 AAAs combined with survey responses from 364 caregivers who received NFCSP caregiver services from one of the 43 AAAs in the preceding 6 months. The program process was the AAA-reported frequency of assessing caregiver program satisfaction. Caregivers were asked, “Have the services you received from {Agency} enabled you to provide care longer than would have been possible without these services?” At the caregiver level, responses were 48% definitely yes, 32% probably yes, and 20% no. We ran a multivariable regression model to estimate the association between the frequency of client satisfaction assessment with aggregated AAA-level percent of caregivers that responded “definitely yes” to the Care Longer question, while controlling for daily intensity of caregiving and other caregiver characteristics. We found that a higher percentage of caregivers who responded “definitely yes” when asked if the services enabled them to be a caregiver longer were clients within AAAs that assessed client satisfaction more often than annually (65.7% vs. 45.0% for AAAs with less frequent assessments; p = 0.0085). Model results also show that AAAs with clients experiencing more intense daily caregiving had a higher percentage of caregivers who responded “definitely yes” to the Care Longer question. These results point to the need for more research to better understand the optimal use of caregiver assessments to improve program effectiveness.