Mental health and gender: Development and evaluation of a digital intervention for health promotion among informal caregivers
Description
- It is estimated that around 4.5 million people in Germany provide informal care. This means that they care for relatives without professional training and without being paid. Women provide informal care more frequently and more intensively than men. Research findings to date also show that women are more affected by the negative health consequences of informal care. Despite the considerable health burdens and the predicted increase in informal caregivers, there are hardly any targeted prevention and health promotion measures for this group.
The aim of the M-Gender project was to develop and evaluate a gender-sensitive digital intervention to promote the mental well-being of informal caregivers.
As an intervention, a chatbot was developed that works via the WhatsApp messenger service. Participants received daily messages on various topics and in different formats via this chatbot over a period of 12 weeks. When creating the content, care was taken to ensure a balanced representation of women and men. Participants could choose between German and Turkish. There was also the opportunity to ask the care provider questions and thus interact with them. A total of 104 informal caregivers were reached in the feasibility study with pre-post design, 83% of whom were women and 17% men. The average time spent caring was around 48 hours per week. More than half of the participants showed depressive symptoms. At the end of the intervention, 48 informal caregivers took part in the post-survey. The average System Usability Scale score was 73.8, indicating a high level of acceptance of the intervention. The analysis of the change in psychological well-being indicates a reduction in stress levels, although the care workload increased over the period.
Funding period
- Begin: April 2021
End: March 2024
Sponsor
- Federal Centre for Health Education