A method to calculate the personal impact of online exercises to improve the positive mental health of family caregivers of chronically ill patients

Background: taking care of chronic or long-term patients at home is an arduous task. Non-professional caregivers suffer the consequences of doing so, especially in terms of their mental health. Performing some simple activities through a mobile phone app may improve their mindset and consequently in...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ferré Bergadá, Maria, Valls, Aida, Raigal Aran, Laia, Lorca Cabrera, Jael, Albacar Riobóo, Núria, Lluch Canut, Ma. Teresa, Ferré Grau, Carme
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/174951
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/174951
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Cuidadors
Salut mental
Malalts crònics
Caregivers
Mental health
Chronically ill
Descripción
Sumario:Background: taking care of chronic or long-term patients at home is an arduous task. Non-professional caregivers suffer the consequences of doing so, especially in terms of their mental health. Performing some simple activities through a mobile phone app may improve their mindset and consequently increase their positivity. However, each caregiver may need support in different aspects of positive mental health. In this paper, a method is defined to calculate the utility of a set of activities for a particular caregiver in order to personalize the intervention plan proposed in the app. Methods: based on the caregivers' answers to a questionnaire, a modular averaging method is used to calculate the personal level of competence in each positive mental health factor. A reward-penalty scoring procedure then assigns an overall impact value to each activity. Finally, the app ranks the activities using this impact value. Results: the results of this new personalization method are provided based on a pilot test conducted on 111 caregivers. The results indicate that a conjunctive average is appropriate at the first stage and that reward should be greater than penalty in the second stage. Conclusions: the method presented is able to personalize the intervention plan by determining the best order of carrying out the activities for each caregiver, with the aim of avoiding a high level of deterioration in any factor.