TY  - JOUR
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39549.548831.AE
PB  - B M J PUBLISHING GROUP
SN  - 0959-8146
N2  - Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of a voluntary sector based befriending scheme in improving psychological wellbeing and quality of life for family carers of people with dementia.Design Single blind randomised controlled trial.Setting Community settings in East Anglia and London.Participants 236 family carers of people with primary progressive dementia.Intervention Contact with a befriender facilitator and offer of match with a trained lay volunteer befriender compared with no befriender facilitator contact; all participants continued to receive "usual care."Main outcome measures Carers' mood (hospital anxiety and depression scale-depression) and health related quality of life (EuroQoL) at 15 months post-randomisation.Results The intention to treat analysis showed no benefit for the intervention "access to a befriender facilitator" on the primary outcome measure or on any of the secondary outcome measures.Conclusions In common with many carers' services, befriending schemes are not taken up by all carers, and providing access to a befriending scheme is not effective in improving wellbeing.
ID  - discovery136363
A1  - Charlesworth, G
A1  - Shepstone, L
A1  - Wilson, E
A1  - Reynolds, S
A1  - Mugford, M
A1  - Price, D
A1  - Harvey, I
A1  - Poland, F
KW  - SOCIAL SUPPORT
KW  -  CAREGIVERS
KW  -  INTERVENTION
KW  -  DEPRESSION
KW  -  SCALE
JF  - BMJ
Y1  - 2008/06/07/
AV  - public
VL  - 336
TI  - Befriending carers of people with dementia: randomised controlled trial
IS  - 7656
N1  - © BMJ Publishing Group Ltd 2013 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license.
ER  -