Evaluation of a respite care program for the frail elderly and its effects on their informal caregivers

With a view to reducing the exhaustion experienced by informal caregivers and thus encourage the frail elderly to remain at home, a new free respite care program, which offers to house the frail elderly one week per month, was evaluated using an array of multiple cases. Ajzen and Madden's (1986) theory of reasoned action was used as a model to explain the effect of the program on the caregivers' intention to resort to permanent accommodation. Fourteen informal caregivers took part in the program evaluation process. An analysis of the reports of the meetings of the program's Implementation Committee revealed that human and material resources had been used as established in the initial plan. Seven subjects completed the 12 months planned for evaluating the program and were able to continue with the program thereafter. An analysis of the data, using graphic representations and pre-experimental and experimental phase medians, did not reveal any decrease in the perceived burden and in the intention to resort to accommodation in subjects who had completed the program evaluation process. Those who dropped out did so in part because of the high level of perceived burden and the caregivers' intention to resort to accommodation prior to entering the program. Unstructured telephone interviews with the caregivers suggest, moreover, that an elderly person's loss of autonomy, a good financial situation, and the caregiver's decreased feeling of guilt at the idea of housing his/her relative are important determining factors in the caregiver's decision to use permanent accommodation.