This study investigated the effects of outpatient geriatric evaluation and management (GEM) on informal caregivers' sense of burden. We randomized 568 high-risk, community-dwelling older adults to receive either GEM or usual care for 6 months. At baseline and one year later, we assessed the burden experienced by their informal caregivers \((N\ \mathbf=}\ 88)\) . Compared with caregivers of participants in the usual care group, caregivers of participants in the GEM group were less than half as likely to report increased burden during the one-year follow-up period \((16.7\%\ \mathrmvs}\ 38.5\%,\ p\ \mathbf=}\ .034)\) . The findings suggest that GEM helps protect the informal caregivers of high-risk older people from the increases in burden that often accompany advancing age.
本研究调查了门诊老年评估和管理(G
EM)对非正式护理人员负担感的影响。我们将 568 名社区居住的高风险老年人随机分组,接受 G
EM 或常规护理,为期 6 个月。在基线和一年后,我们评估了他们的非正式护理人员所经历的负担 \((N\ \mathbf=}\ 88)\) 。与常规护理组参与者的照顾者相比,G
EM 组参与者的照顾者在一年的随访期间报告负担增加的可能性不到一半 \((16.7\%\ \mathrmvs}\ 38.5\%,\ p\ \mathbf=}\ .034)\) .研究结果表明,G
EM 有助于保护高危老年人的非正式护理人员免受随着年龄增长而增加的负担。