Empathy training and the effects on the psychological impact of caregivers of the elderly: a randomized clinical trial

INTERVENTION: Caregivers will be randomly divided, controlled and crossed (double‐blind) into two groups: intervention (GI) that will participate in a training that will address empathic skills and control (CG) will participate in seminars that will address the main diseases related to aging . Caregivers will be randomly distributed through a simple randomization procedure in a 1:1 allocation ratio performed in Microsoft Excel (caregivers drawn with number 1 will compose the GI group and with number 0 the GC group). The draw will be carried out blindly by a collaborator who will not participate in the interventions, seeking to avoid selection bias, with 18 participants for the intervention group and 18 for the control group, with a total of 36 caregivers of the elderly. Caregivers will participate in a training of five online meetings lasting a total of ten hours while the control group will participate in lectures on diseases affected in old age. In addition, all caregivers answered the following instruments pre and post‐intervention: Neuropsychiatric Inventory; Self‐report questionnaire; Patient Health Questionnaire; Multidimensional Interpersonal Reactivity Scale; Care Burden Inventory; Zarit Overload Inventory. The instruments will be applied online by a blind third researcher who will also not participate in the interventions or in the initial randomization. Empathic skills training For the IG, training adapted from the study by Gholamzadeh et al. (2018) which aimed to investigate the effects of empathy skills training on nursing students' attitudes and levels of empathy towards the elderly. In addition, an activity performed in the study by Wündrich et al. (2017) with simulated patients. This activity will be adapted to the group studied and focusing on the elderly‐caregiver d I02.358.859 CONDITION: Caregiver Burden C24.580 PRIMARY OUTCOME: It is expected to find an effect on empathy training as an increase in the level of this skill, especially in the cognitive domain, and consequently a decrease in the level of burden on caregivers of older people It is expected to find an effect of empathy training capable of contributing to the advancement of understanding of the relationship between empathy and burden in paid and unpaid caregivers of the older adults SECONDARY OUTCOME: Secondary outcomes are not expected INCLUSION CRITERIA: Present a score equal to or greater than 23 on the Zarit Burden Scale; perform the role of caregiver of an elderly person for at least three months; carry out their activities for at least four hours a day and be of legal age