Optimizing nutrition and oral health for caregivers—intervention protocol

BACKGROUND: The focus of care has shifted from institutional care to home care. Family caregivers provide the majority of home care that allows an opportunity for their care recipients to live at home and avoid costly institutional care. The aim of this study is to describe the nutritional status, oral health, and quality of life of family caregivers over the age of 65 and their care recipients, and to evaluate the impact of individually tailored diet and oral health advice to their nutritional status and oral health. METHODS/DESIGN: Altogether, 250 family caregivers aged 65 or over, and their care recipients are studied in this prospective randomized population-based multidisciplinary 6-month intervention study. Participants are randomly allocated to the intervention groups or the control group. Data collection is performed at three time-points: at baseline and 6 months and after a 6-month follow-up at 12 months. Caregivers’ and their care recipients’ nutritional and oral health status as a primary outcome, and functional ability, cognitive status, quality of life, depression symptoms, sense of coherence, morbidity, and medication of family caregivers as secondary outcomes will be measured using validated self-administered questionnaires and clinical examinations. DISCUSSION: To our knowledge, this is the first experiment to determine whether caregivers and their care recipients benefit from individual nutritional intervention and oral health intervention in terms of nutrition status, oral health status, and quality of life. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04003493. Registered on June 28, 2019