Effectiveness of structured teaching program on knowledge and fear of alzheimer's disease in cognitively intact older adults

Abstract EN

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is considered one of the major public health problem throughout the world especialy among older adults.

Fear of developing AD has become a topic of interest.

So it's important to raise awareness about AD through assessment of elders' knowledge regarding AD aiming to improve diagnosis and treatment modalities, inorder to reduce stigma and improve community support in different clinical care settings.Aim: To measure the effectiveness of structured teaching program on knowledge and fear of Alzheimer's disease in cognitively intact older adults.

Methods: A quasi-experimental, pre and post intervention research design was implemented.The study was conducted at the Geriatric Outpatient Clinic of the Specialized Medical Hospital, Mansoura University, Egypt.

A purposive sample of 54 elderly of both sexes attending the above-mentioned setting according to inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Tools: Five tools were used for data collection; Elderly People's Demographic and Clinical Data, Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Self-rated Health status Scale,The Alzheimer’s Disease Knowledge Scale (ADKS), and The Fear of Alzheimer’s Disease Scale (FADS).

Results: Both ADKS and FADS overall scores showed significant increase after the program implementation (17.62±4.07 and 41.61±24.70 vs.19.18±3.59 and 48.05±26.66; respectively).

This improvement favours young elderly female, single, and illiterate elderly who have poor health status, haven't information about the disease or didn't provide any care for Alzheimer's patients, and worried from affection of the disease.

A statistically significant positive correlation was found between ADKS total mean score of studied elders and their fear from AD (FADS) before and after the implementation of the structured teaching program.

Conclusion: The intervention program improved knowledge but increased fear of AD in elderly.

Recommendations: Planning training program to older adults about the other measures to reduce dementia worry such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or counseling services, development of awareness campaigns about AD and dementia directly to the general public, and health care provider to combat the negative stigma associated with the disease.