Person‐centered Care for Family Caregivers of People Living with Dementia: Evaluating an Education Program for the Healthcare Workforce

While family caregivers[FCGs] provide over 90% of care for people with dementia[1 2] most members of the healthcare workforce do not meaningfully involve FCGs as partners in care[3 4] or support FCGs in maintaining their own wellbeing. Recent research recommends the healthcare workforce receive competency-based education to identify, assess, support and partner with FCGs across the care trajectory.[5 6] A multi-level interdisciplinary team (n=101) co-designed competency-based person-centered education for the health workforce. It is offered free online (caregivercare.ca) OBJECTIVES: Report on a mixed methods evaluation of a person-centered competency-based education program for the healthcare workforce.To create the program we began by coining the concept "caregiver-centered care," defining it as: a collaborative working relationship between families and healthcare providers aimed at supporting FCGs in their caregiving role, decisions about services, care management, and advocacy [7 8] . From this definition, multi-level, interdisciplinary stakeholders including FCGs (n=101) co-designed a first or 'foundational' level of a Caregiver-Centered Care education program. Teaching and learning resources include six competency-aligned educational modules with videos and interactive exercises that encourage reflection.The Kirkpatrick Barr[9 10] health workforce training evaluation framework underpinned our mixed methods evaluation design. We used the Student Satisfaction with Education Scale to measure participant's reaction to the education (Level 1) and the Caregiver-Centered Care Knowledge Assessment Test [CKAT] to assess changes in learner's knowledge and confidence to work with FCGs (Level 2).In the first two months 352 healthcare providers completed the education through caregivercare.ca. Learners were satisfied with the overall quality of education (Mean 4.69 (SD=.6) Median 5). Student's paired samples T-test indicates pre-post education changes in knowledge and confidence to work with FCGs were significant. Pre (M=37.8, Sd=7.6) to post (M=47.2, SD=3.5) t (125) = -14.39, p<.0005 (two-tailed). Qualitative results derived from open responses mirrored the quantitative results.Educating the health workforce is a population health approach to address known gaps in supporting and working with FCGs across the care trajectory[2 3 11] .The Care-Giver Centered Care education provides a foundation for educating healthcare providers working with FCGs to provide person-centered care to FCGs.