Educational community intervention with nonformal caregivers in a rural population to improve knowledge and resources related to palliative care: Study protocol.

Abstract

Background: In Spain, there are between 300,000 and 370,000 people with palliative care needs, and it is believed that fewer than 50% can access them. The current challenge is to combat inequities in access to palliative care resources in the rural environment through training, greater provision of material and human resources, and the involvement of health system managers.

Main objective: To determine the effectiveness of an educational community intervention on knowledge of care for nonformal caregivers in a rural area.

Design: A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest study with a control group will be conducted in Isso's primary care setting (Albacete).

Methods and analysis: The sample calculation was performed with the GRANMO program (version 8.0, 2024) with 80 caregivers. The dependent variables will be caregiver support, quality of life, and knowledge of palliative care. The IBM SPSS Statistics version 28 program will be used for statistical analysis. Instruments used were the abbreviated Zarit scale, EuroQol 5D, Goldberg, and PaCKs.

Discussion: Improving the overload in care of the main caregiver of people with palliative care, since it negatively affects health and improves the well-being of informal caregivers.

Conclusion: If schools for caregivers were implemented in other health centers or clinics accessible to the population, the empowerment of these people could be improved by reducing costs and enhancing experiences in care.

Ethics: The protocol was approved by the social research ethics committee of the University of Castilla-la Mancha with reference number CEIS-2024-21094 and by the drug research ethics committee of the Gerencia de Atención Integrada de Albacete with code No. 2024-003.