A Telenovela Intervention for Caregivers of African-American and Hispanic Hospice Patients

Telenovela is a television drama or soap opera that can be used to lead viewers to contemplate and discuss critical issues through video storytelling. Prior work showed informational telenovelas had a positive effect on Latino family caregivers' attitudes toward end-of-life (EOL) care services. The role of videos in hospice and palliative care shows significant promise, underscoring the videos as a mode of education for family caregivers that could potentially enhance caregiver's self-efficacy, decrease caregiver's anxiety, and reduce burnout. Despite the value of video education, many programs have failed to provide engaging material.

Based on input from HFCG, the investigators have produced a bilingual (Spanish and English version) four chapter telenovela video series (To Care/ El privilegio de cuidar) as part of NCI funded diversity supplement study. Founded upon extensive preliminary work, To Care portrays the journey of one hospice family as the family struggle with the hospice decision, pain management, decision-making, and finally the dying process. Averaging only 4:65 minutes, each chapter addresses one of these problems, validating family experiences and identifying potential solutions.

In a follow-up study, the investigators developed an interventionist-led conversation guide as a companion for the telenovela. The intervention, which includes the video series and the conversation guide, is named NOVELA (short for telenovela). The investigators preliminary single-arm trial found NOVELA feasible and acceptable in the hospice setting, with promising improvements in caregiver anxiety symptoms. Thus, storytelling and culturally tailored videos can be powerful tools to educate family caregivers of hospice patients. The overall expectation is that NOVELA will improve self-efficacy thus lowering anxiety in hospice family caregivers.

This proposal has the following aims:

• Specific Aim 1: Investigate the preliminary efficacy of delivering NOVELA to African American (AA) and Hispanic HFCGs of cancer patients.
• Specific Aim 2: Evaluate the benefits of NOVELA as perceived by hospice staff.

Inclusion criteria

• Identified family caregiver of patients enrolled in hospice
• Caregivers must be over the age of 18
• Without cognitive impairment
• With access to wireless device and internet.

Exclusion criteria

• HFCG of patients that are actively dying
• Caregivers younger than 18 years
• With cognitive impairment
• Without internet access.