Effects of a Palliative Care Consulting Program for Caregivers’ on Stress, Confidence and Palliative Care Outcomes

Abstract

This quasi-experimental research with one-group pre- and post-test design aimed to study effects of a palliative care counseling program on caregivers’ stress, confidence and palliative care outcomes. Samples consisted of primary caregivers and palliative care patients admitted to Kranuan Crown Prince Hospital between October-December 2024. The samples were selected using purposive sampling technique and consisted of 30 pairs of caregivers and patients according to the inclusion criteria. Research instruments included an education and counseling program for primary caregivers of palliative care patients, and assessment tools used for data collection including an assessment of stress, confidence, and outcomes of palliative care for palliative care patients. The instrument’s content validity using CVI was 0.97 and the instrument’s reliability using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.87. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, paired t-test, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test with statistical significance set at p=0.05.

The results showed that, after completing the program, caregivers had a significant decrease in stress (z=4.80, p=0.001), a significant increase in overall confidence (z=4.78, p=.001), and significantly lower palliative care outcome scores (z=4.70, p=0.001) than those before the experiment.