The Effects of Different Pattern of Family Involvement in Nursing Home on Residents' and Their Family's Health-A Longitudinal Study

Social support is closely related to both the elderly health status and quality of life. Family member’s continued involvement in the nursing home is the important resources of elderly residents’social support in nursing home. The overall purposes of this a series of research will be to use multi-methods research design to evaluate the long-term effects of different family involvement pattern (personal visit, telephone, and videoconference) on elderly residents’and family’s health. The first year will use a qualitative research design to understand the meaning of family involvement from the elderly residents’and their family members’perception. Verbatim transcripts of audiotaped interviews will be analysed by thematic analysis via ATLAS.ti software. An evidence-based culture relevant instrument to measure the family involvement meaning will also further create in the first year. During the first 6 months of the second year, the family involvement meaning scale (including elderly and caregiver version) will be validated first. Then, the family involvement protocol will be developed and validated. Finally, a longitudinal quasi-experiment research design will be applied to evaluate the effects of different family involvement pattern (personal visit, telephone, and videoconference) on residents’ and family’s health change over time (baseline, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months) in the rest of second and the third year. The variables will include family (caregiver) health outcomes, residents’health outcomes, mediator (family involvement meaning & social support). The sample size will be 50 in each group. Generalized estimated equations (GEE) analysis will be used to understand the long-term effect of each variable. Findings of this study can provide guidelines for development of intervention programs for enhancing residents’ and their family members’health in nursing home in Taiwan.

Project ID:PC9808-0529
External Project ID:NSC98-2314-B182-055-MY2