Caregiver Telephone Assessment and Skill-Building Kit

在美国，中风是导致严重、长期残疾的头号原因，大多数中风幸存者都在家人的照顾下。家庭照护者由于提供照护而面临抑郁、心理社会障碍和死亡的风险。缺乏必要的技能被认为在消极的照顾者结果中起着关键作用。申请人的最终职业目标是成为一名独立的研究者，开发和评估旨在改善慢性疾病家庭照顾者结果的干预方案。通过结构化的培训计划，包括正式课程、研讨会、会议和经验丰富的护士研究人员的密切指导，K01指导研究科学家奖将为申请人提供开发和试点测试电话评估和技能建设工具包（TASK）的机会，这是一个针对以下目标的个性化8周干预计划

Stroke is the number one cause of serious, long-term disability in the United States, with most stroke survivors under the care of family members. Family caregivers are at risk for depression, psychosocial impairments, and mortality as a result of providing care. The lack of necessary skills is hypothesized to play a key role in negative caregiver outcomes. The ultimate career goal of the applicant is to become an independent investigator developing and evaluating intervention programs aimed at improving outcomes of family caregivers in chronic illness. Through a structured training plan consisting of formal coursework, workshops, conferences, and close mentoring by seasoned nurse researchers, the K01 Mentored Research Scientist Award will provide the applicant with the opportunity to develop and pilot-test the Telephone Assessment and Skill-building Kit (TASK), an individualized 8-week intervention program geared toward reducing depression and improving general health in stroke caregivers. Specific aims of the research plan are to: (a) gather evidence of content validity (accuracy, clinical feasibility, and theoretical relevance) for the TASK program components from experts, (b) gather evidence of the accuracy, feasibility, and acceptability of the TASK intervention program and the attention control group content from 6 family caregivers, and (c) conduct a pilot study with 46 caregivers randomized either to the intervention or attention control group to explore the effectiveness of the TASK intervention in enhancing stroke caregiver outcomes. The intervention will be guided by a conceptual model derived from Lazarus' theory of stress and coping and Mishers theory of uncertainty in illness. Caregiver outcomes will be measured at baseline (1-2 weeks after the stroke survivor is discharged home), and again at 4, 8, and 12 weeks after baseline. Findings will serve as preliminary data for an RO1 application to test the effectiveness of the TASK program in a large randomized clinical trial.