The Effectiveness of Educational and Counseling Program Delivered through Family Meetings on Stress and Acceptance among Caregivers of End-of-Life Patients at Lang Suan Hospital

Abstract

This quasi-experimental one-group pretest-posttest study aimed to compare stress and acceptance levels among caregivers of end-of-life patients before and after participating in an educational and counseling program delivered through family meetings. Thirty caregivers of end-of-life patients participated in the program, which was developed based on the concepts of family meetings and communication in palliative care. The research instruments consisted of three questionnaire sections: 1) general information, 2) caregiver stress assessment, and 3) caregiver acceptance assessment. The content validity indices for the stress and acceptance assessments were 0.82 and 0.96, respectively; and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were 0.86 and 0.91, respectively. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and paired t-test.

The research findings revealed that after participating in the program, caregivers reported significantly lower stress levels and higher acceptance levels compared to before the intervention, with statistical significance at the 0.05 level (t = 16.56 and 12.93, respectively).

This study suggests that the educational and counseling program delivered through family meetings is effective in reducing caregiver stress and enhancing acceptance of the terminal illness, potentially improving the quality of life for both patients and caregivers.