Health Education in an HMO: Effectiveness and Efficiency. Abstract, ExecutiveSummary, and Final Report

摘要

This project evaluated the short and long-term effectiveness of a HealthEducation Program (HEP) for spouses and frail older persons in a staff model HMO. HEP is a multi-component program for the spouses only. It includes emotion and problem-focused coping strategies, education, and support in 8, weekly, 2 hour, group sessions and 10, monthly, 2 hour, follow-up sessions. The results indicate that for caregivers, HEP was more effective than usual care (UC) in the short-term for reducing depression, maintaining social integration, increasing problem solving effectiveness, increasing knowledge of community services and how to access them, increasing feelings of competence, and improving the way caregivers respond to the care recipient. Most of these changes continued to be found one and two years after intervention. For care recipients, few significant differences were found on the psychosocial measures at any time point. However, significant total health care costs savings were found favoring both the caregivers and care recipients who participated in HEP.