Abstract
Alzheimer disease (AD) is considered one of the most stressful and challenging conditions both for a patient and family. Caregivers, whether family members or paid employees, frequently encounter particular challenges and often experience unmet needs for informational and emotional support. In 2018, an innovative national call support program (NCSP) was founded accessible 24/7 to all Health Fund members in Israel. Through the program, three types of integrated care are offered by the multi-professional team of nurses and social workers: single call support; call consultation combined with home visits; or call consultation combined with a home visit and day care service. Our research objectives were to evaluate: (1) callers’ characteristics and behaviors over time; (2) experience with provided integrated care and satisfaction among callers. A retrospective descriptive study (May 2018 through September 2021) was conducted based on available call data from the administrative, computerized program’s databases. During study period, 5,326 callers applied to NCSP, giving a total of 11,820 calls, and 787 home visits were completed (since March 2020, 411 of them were virtual).The majority of applicants (77%) reported a heavy/ very heavy burden of caring for an AD patient and they contacted NCSP due to coping with burden of care (35%), information about AD, e.g. medication (15%), coping with behavioral disturbances (14%), coping with functional decline (14%), queries about rights/guardianship (8%).The callers received consul and practical tools addressing coping with daily medical/nursing-related tasks and managing behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (62%), coping with their emotional burden (29%), and execution of rights (9%). Most of the home visits were initiated by the NCSP (60%) due to coping difficulties (82%), functional decline (65%), behavioral disturbances (57%), and communication difficulties (25%). Satisfaction with face-to -face and virtual visits was very high (86%). The majority of the applicants (71%) reported that they would recommend a friend facing a similar situation to call NCSP; 60% reported that they would call NCSP again in the future. Our findings suggest that NCSP provides valuable and quality integrated care framework for both the caregivers and the healthcare system. Due to limitation of descriptive study design, we call for further research to examine the program's contribution and effectiveness as reflected in long-term improvement of callers’ outcomes.