It is called INTENT-CARE. It is a technological tool that provides information tailored to the needs of family caregivers of dependent people. It will be presented at the NursID Week 2018 – Nursing Research Week, which will take place from 9 to 13 July at the Nursing School of Porto (ESEP in Portuguese).
INTENT-CARE was developed by the CINTESIS Nursing researchers Maria José Lumini and Teresa Martins. The tool presents content to support home care in various intervention areas, such as feeding, positioning, transferring from one place to another, support to bath, the best way to dress the patient, among other information, allowing to support non-professionals to give better care to people who depend on them on a daily basis.
INTENT-CARE is an interactive digital tool designed to provide information tailored to the needs of family caregivers of dependent patients in self-care, in order to complement the supervision provided by health professionals to promote their autonomy, based on the availability of resources (image, video, audio, and text) to help caregivers understand caregiving procedures.
The ESEP Nursing professors contextualize: “In Portugal, care for dependents is essentially ensured by families. Caregivers are increasingly being asked for a responsibility for health care, often subjecting them to stressful situations. The growing use of educational platforms in the area of health education can be a resource for this population.”
For the design of this tool, two previous studies were carried out to determine the needs and difficulties of family caregivers. The construction and validation of the interactive tool was supported by a panel of experts. Finally, studies were carried out with samples of caregivers in order to validate the usability of the tool.
The accessibility and simplicity of this platform has been a major concern in its development. By its use and free access this platform allows to increase the accessibility to health care. It also provides professionals with the opportunity to improve their work by focusing their attention on the most relevant aspects, in particular the promotion and well-being of individuals and their families. Through the reliable information that the platform provides, adapted to the needs of the family caregivers, it is an important facilitating resource to improve the care provided to dependent persons.
The Nursing Week 2018 – Nursing Research Week is an event sponsored by ESEP and CINTESIS that will bring together more than 300 national and international individuals “with the objective of discussing issues related to research, innovation and the development of the sciences particularly in the Nursing fields,” explains Carlos Sequeira, a professor at ESEP and leader of the nursing research group at CINTESIS.
This event will include 5 science workshops, 8 thematic seminars, 2 project shows and 1 international congress. It will contribute to the dissemination of research in terms of teaching, research and clinical practice, with special emphasis on the presentation of innovating projects in the field of health, such as the work developed by CINTESIS researchers and ESEP professors.