The Effectiveness of Emotion Efficacy Therapy on Burden and Compassion Fatigue of Caregivers Patients with Dementia

The high prevalence of dementia in the world and the psychological consequences related to it, including caregiving burden and compassion fatigue, puts the mental health of their caregivers at risk. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of emotion efficacy therapy on caregiving burden and compassion fatigue in caregivers of patients with dementia.

This was a semi-experimental research of pre-test-post-test type with a control group, which was conducted in 2022 on the caregivers of dementia patients referred to neurology clinics in Isfahan city. Thirty people were selected by purposeful sampling, according to the entry and exit criteria and randomly replaced in two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received eight weekly 90-minute sessions of emotional efficiency therapy. The research tool was Zarit's burden of care and Stamm's professional life quality questionnaires. After analyzing the data, it was done with repeated measures variance analysis.

The effect of EET on reducing care burden and compassion fatigue in the post-test is 16.1% and 17.4%, respectively. The effect of EET on care burden and compassion fatigue variables in the follow-up phase is 15.2% and 15.6%, respectively. The difference between the two groups is not significant in the pre-test stage, but in the post-test and follow-up stages, a significant difference has been obtained between the control group and the test in both variables.

Emotion efficacy therapy has a significant effect on reducing care burden and compassion fatigue in caregivers of patients with dementia.