FFN-Stories-Educational-Web-Course-for-Caregivers-V4-JST (PDF)

FFN Facilitated Success Stories #2 Development of an Educational Web Course for Caregivers Family caregivers’ mental health is an important predictor of care recipients' institutionalization and a risk factor for care recipient mortality. Hip fracture is considered an acute event and often caregivers do not have enough time to develop the necessary skills and competencies to provide adequate care when the patient is discharged to their care. The literature shows that interventions improving educational and social support for family caregivers of older adults were found to effectively increase caregivers’ confidence, coping ability and caregiver outcomes. The idea of creating an educational project to support caregivers started with a previous experience of caregiver training in Italy. In 2016 we conducted a study aimed to assess the relationship between the psychological well-being of patients with hip fracture and their informal caregivers (Batista de Lima et al 2020). A mutual relationship exists between patients' psychological well-being and their caregiver’s burden. Based on this, we believe that educational support for caregivers could enhance and improve patients’ wellbeing and recovery. In cooperation with the Italian Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics and Sapienza University of Rome, we organized courses with the aim of enhancing the skills of caregivers and giving them the basic knowledge to take care of an older patient. These courses, organized in many Italian regions, have been very successful with the participation of many caregivers from all over the Country. Based on this experience, the FFN Education Committee decided to create the online project “Educational Web Course for Caregivers of Patients with Fragility Fractures”, to provide the opportunity for caregivers around the world to access it for free. The course will consist of 14 modules. The development of these modules is involving the participation of different health professionals from all over the world, ensuring an interdisciplinary and multicultural aspect to the project. The contents of the modules address both theoretical-practical aspects of home management of a patient who has sustained a hip fracture and emotional-psychological aspects, important for a better caregiver-patient relationship and for reducing stress. The modules are currently being developed in English, but, in line with the regionalization mission of FFN, the idea is to translate the course into as many global languages as possible, in order to reach the largest audience, even in remote and underdeveloped areas of the world. Translations will aim to consider the different social, anthropological and cultural aspects in every single national reality in which the course will be reproduced. This project was partly supported by an unrestricted grant from AMGEN that was obtained from the FFN Education Committee. Thanks to the partnership with the e-learning company Teleskill, the project is now coming to life. Together we took care of some graphic aspects by creating avatars, prepared the most suitable animations and, in parallel, we started to create the website that will host the project. The modules are interactive and participants will have the opportunity to interact with the authors of the modules to get clarifications on the topics. FFN involvement in educational projects such as this help in the diffusion of the FFN vision, mission and goals, including in emerging economies. The benefits that this project will have for Fragility Fracture Care include: • An increase in the quality of care provided at home, • Improved well-being of elderly fracture patients and their caregivers; • A decrease in misinformation and stress experienced by caregivers; • A decrease in early institutionalization, with a consequent decrease in cost implications for global health systems.  Participants include: Maria Eduarda Batista de Lima, Paolo Falaschi, Stefano Eleuteri, Karen Hertz, Julie Santy-Tomlinson, Charlotte Myhre Jansen, Andréa Marques, Aline Tavares Domingos, Lingli Peng, Lucy Wang, Sanlian Hu, Panagiota Copanitsanou, Lina Spirgiene, Monica Perracini, Patrocinio Ariza Vega, Maureen Ashe, Alessandro Lupo, Anna Giulia Macchiarelli. For further information about the project please contact: [email protected] Batista de Lima, M.E., Falaschi, P., Eleuteri, S. (2020) Supporting family caregivers of older adults with hip fracture: the role of educational courses. in Caregiving: Perspectives, experiences and challenges. Nova Science Publishers. ISBN: 978-1-53616-889-1.