The overall goal of this proposal is to integrate mentoring and research aims to scientifically contribute to the field of research on family caregivers of persons with dementia by furthering the understanding of patient and caregiver issues as a basis for nursing intervention research. One approach will be through an extension of the mentor's research on caregiver stress/vigilance, and other through the new investigators research with minority AD caregivers. Caregiving research has been critiqued for the lack of rigorous designed large-scale randomized studies that use standardized designs, measures, and well-defined outcomes. The mentor's research study will address these weakness by using data from the NIH funded REACH study, which is uniquely designed to provide high quality data and includes over 1000 ethnically diverse caregivers.
The specific aim will be to test the psychometric properties of the vigilance measure, in comparison to the existing measures to see if it is a more sensitive indicator of caregiver stress, the primary outcome variable. Vigilance emerged as a new concept from the PI's former qualitative study and this proposal will build upon that research, permit the investigation of this promising measure, and exploration of its relationship to clinically related health outcomes.
The specific aim of the new investigator's studies will be to investigate barriers and facilitators to minority access and use of AD clinical and social support resources. Investigators will team with minority colleagues, to recruit minority caregivers for focus group sessions with their respective populations (African-American, Asian and Hispanic). With mentorship, each investigator will conduct a qualitative version of content analysis for their specific group and author a paper on their findings. Subsequently, they will collaboratively design plus implement an intervention study to improve caregiver outcomes and quantitatively assess the effects. Boston's internationally recognized Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for Aged, Research and Training Institute, provides excellent resources to support the proposed research and training.
| Mahoney, Diane Feeney; Cloutterbuck, Jane; Neary, Susan et al. (2005) African American, Chinese, and Latino family caregivers' impressions of the onset and diagnosis of dementia: cross-cultural similarities and differences. Gerontologist 45:783-92 |
| Mahoney, Diane Feeney; Jones, Richard N; Coon, David W et al. (2003) The Caregiver Vigilance Scale: application and validation in the Resources for Enhancing Alzheimer's Caregiver Health (REACH) project. Am J Alzheimers Dis Other Demen 18:39-48 |
| Mahoney, Diane Feeney (2003) Vigilance. Evolution and definition for caregivers of family members with Alzheimer's disease. J Gerontol Nurs 29:24-30 |
