Caring Through COVID

Abstract: This multisite quality improvement (QI) project reports on a psychotherapy group for family care partners of persons living with neurodegenerative conditions. Following the plan-do-study-act model, a team of geropsychologists iteratively developed, implemented, and refined the 8-week “Caring Through COVID” psychotherapy group across five cycles from January 2021 to April 2022. Participants were 21 spouses or adult children of persons living with neurodegenerative conditions. Across two clinics, participants evidenced moderate improvements in caregiver burden ( d = .59), self-efficacy for caregiving ( d = −.64), and self-efficacy for emotion regulation ( d = −.60). The group was perceived positively by participants. This QI project demonstrates the real-world implementation of a psychotherapy group developed during the COVID-19 pandemic and refined to remain ongoing.