The effect of family-centered empowerment model on daily living activities of the elderly with ‎Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Determining the effect of family-centered empowerment model on daily life activities of elderly people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

A randomized clinical trial with two intervention and control groups, with parallel, unblinded, randomized groups, and phase 3 on 224 elderly people, where four-way alternating blocks were used for randomization.

This study was conducted in the internal medicine clinics of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences. The family-centered empowerment model was implemented through four steps: perceived threat, problem solving, educational participation, and evaluation. Each step consisted of a 75- to 90-minute session. The sessions were conducted face-to-face with discussion, exchange of ideas, and questions and answers between the researcher, the patient, and the patient's primary caregiver. The activities of daily living questionnaire was completed by the elderly before the intervention and one week after the intervention.

Patient inclusion criteria: willingness to participate in the study, age 60 years and older, moderate to severe COPD diagnosed by an internal medicine specialist; Patient exclusion criteria: known psychological problems and problems affecting the elderly's daily activities, such as movement disorders and disabilities; Caregiver inclusion criteria: willingness to participate in the study, primary caregiver who provides the most help to the patient in treatment and care, having at least 6 months of experience caring for the patient, being literate

In the intervention group, the family-centered empowerment model was implemented through four steps: perceived threat, problem solving, educational participation, and evaluation. Routine care was provided to the control group.

Activity of Daily Living

Patients were assigned to two intervention and control groups using four-way permutation blocks. The intervention group will be assigned the letter "A" and the control group the letter "B". The possible states in the four-way block are six states including "AABB, BBAA, ABAB, BABA, ABBA, BAAB", each state will be written on a card and the cards will be assigned numbers one to six. Then, one of the six possible states will be selected using dice and the selected patients will be divided into two groups based on that. This process will continue until the sample size is completed.