The Effects of Family Empowerment Program on Knowledge and Skills in Caring of Patients with Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

Objective: 1) To compare caring knowledge and perceived self-efficacy in family caregivers of patients with coronary heart disease (CVD) between the experimental and the control groups, and 2) to assess the cardiovascular assessment and basic life support skills of family caregivers in the experimental group after completing the family empowerment program.

Design: Quasi-experimental research.

Methods: The research sample consisted of family caregivers of CVD patients in Buriram. The participants who had eligible were matched pair technique based on gender, age, and education level. Those were equally randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group with 21 subjects in each group. The experimental group received a family empowerment program for four weeks. The researcher developed the implementation instrument; The family empowerment program was developed based on Hulme’s family empowerment model. The knowledge assessment form was used to collect the caring knowledge of CVD patients of the participants. It presented the confidence value of Kudur-Richardson (KR-20) was .79. The self-efficacy questionnaire was used to collect the perceived self-efficacy in caring, and it showed the coefficient of alpha Cronbach was .96. The observation forms were used to evaluate the skill of assessing the cardiovascular system and skill of basic life support. Their Items-Objective Congruence (IOC) was 1. Descriptive statistics and t-test statistic was used to analyze the data.

Findings: 1) Participants in the experimental group had knowledge scores, and the perceived self-efficacy in caring for patients with CVD was statically higher significant than those in the control group at the .001 level and 2) All participants in the experimental group (100%) could pass at a good in the skill of CVD assessment and basic life support.

Conclusion: This research revealed that the family empowerment program could improve caregiver potential to provide care for their CVD patients.