A Two-Tier Care Management Program to Empower Stroke Caregivers in Hong Kong

The family-based care management intervention will be implemented in two tiers. The first tier is the Family Care Management that a care manager is responsible for empowering family caregivers to support their stroke survivors through reorganizing family roles, enhancing family functioning, and maximizing their family and community resources. The second tier is led by trained volunteers who are responsible for increasing the capacity of caregivers for the mastery of stroke care by providing psychoeducation, skill-training, and social support. Each caregiver participant will be assigned a care manager and a volunteer. All care managers who are social workers from the participating centres have undergone 4-day training to improve their knowledge of stroke and skills required for the intervention. Similarly, volunteers have undergone 6.5-day training to equip them with the knowledge and skills to conduct the intervention.

The active control group will receive a standard, non-family-based psychoeducation intervention provided by the trained volunteers under the supervision of care managers. It will provide 4 in-home visits and 2 telephone follow-up interviews about psychoeducation for caregivers of stroke survivors.