Helping Invested Families Improve Veterans Experiences Study

Anticipated Impacts on Veteran's Healthcare: Designing and implementing a training program for informal caregivers of functionally impaired Veterans (HI-FIVES) will enhance Veterans' ability to remain in their homes and satisfaction with care, as well as lower VA costs. Caregiver training can also improve caregiver wellbeing by alleviating feelings of depression and burden, which can also improve the care they provide to veterans. The investigators' caregiver training program is consistent with features of two recent national policy changes aimed to improve quality of care for veterans. First, providing training to informal caregivers of functionally impaired veterans is consistent with the 2000 Millennium Health Care Act, which mandated an unprecedented expansion in long-term care benefits to Veterans, and stipulated that, whenever possible, care be provided in the least restrictive environment possible-the home. Second, The Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010 mandated unprecedented support for informal caregivers of severely injured Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom(OEF/OIF) Veterans, including providing caregiver training to informal caregivers of any era veteran. Achieving higher quality informal care supports both of these mandates. By partnering with VA providers, HI-FIVES will improve the skill of caregivers, thereby improving veteran health care quality and the ability for veterans to remain at home.

Project Background: Caregiver burnout, strain and burden are associated with caregiver depression and patient institutionalization. Furthermore, lack of skills among caregivers can lead to depression and anxiety as well as patient institutionalization. The investigators propose to evaluate an innovative program that supports and trains informal caregivers when veterans are referred to Veterans Health Administration (VHA) home and community-based care (HCBC), a critical moment in a veteran's VHA health care use trajectory. Referral to HCBC is a time when caregivers may face personal strain and uncertainty about demands involved in caregiving. As such, it presents a teachable moment to train caregivers to better meet the demands imposed by caregiving.

Project Objectives: To evaluate whether over 12 months, veterans with caregivers in the skill training program have clinically significant increases in days at home than veterans in usual care (e.g. days not in emergency department, hospital, or nursing home). In addition, the investigators will evaluate whether veterans in the skill training program have significantly lower VA costs of medical care or higher satisfaction with VHA over 6 and 12 months than veterans in usual care. Finally, the investigators will evaluate whether caregivers in the skill training program have clinically significant reductions in depressive symptoms, subjective burden, or increased satisfaction with VA healthcare at 6 and12 months than caregivers in usual care.

Project Methods: The study is a randomized controlled trial with data collection from caregiver-patient dyads before and after training, and at 6 and 12 months after program completion. Piloted in early 2012, the setting is the Social Work Service at the Durham VA Medical Center (VAMC). Patient inclusion criteria are patient referred to home and community-based services in the past 3 months, not eligible for hospice, residing at home, has an informal caregiver, and willing to let investigators contact the caregiver. Caregivers must be cognitively and physically capable to participate, understand English, not be treated for a substance abuse disorder, not be in another caregiver interventional study, and willing to participate in 3 phone call trainings and attend five group sessions at the VA. Caregivers in the control group will receive the training and support usually provided by HCBC and VA medical providers. To be referred successfully to HCBC, patients will have a minimum of 2 activity of daily living limitations, and are likely to have multimorbidity, including high rates of cognitive impairment (44% in the pilot). The target sample size will be 146 caregivers in each arm. Patient involvement will be limited to four short phone assessments (with mechanisms established for proxy respondents). Caregivers in the treatment arm will take part in three phone training sessions and five group sessions, and in both arms caregivers will be asked to provide four phone assessments. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize all study variables. Of primary importance will be to examine the distribution of patient days spent at home during the first 3 months, the first 6 months, and over the entire 12 months of the post-intervention period (e.g. days not in ED, inpatient, or nursing home setting). Investigators will use the count-data regression model which best fits the investigators' data (Poisson, Negative Binomial or zero-inflated versions of Poisson or Negative Binomial) to test the primary hypothesis that veterans with caregivers in the skill training program will have significantly more days spent at home than veterans in usual care.