Objective:

Provide comprehensive, effective, interactive training to a diverse global community of Parkinson's care partners. 

Background:

In a survey by the Davis Phinney Foundation, 86% of 752 respondents said being a Parkinson’s care partner is the hardest thing they have ever done. In a separate care partner survey, 93% of respondents lacked formal training on caring for someone with Parkinson’s, and 75% requested specific training on advanced symptoms, medication management, and caregiver self-care. In response, our community-academic partnership developed a novel educational intervention.

Design/Methods:

Via targeted emails through the Davis Phinney Foundation, we advertised an informational webinar, “Live Well and Thrive as a Parkinson’s Care Partner”. The host emphasized three domains—knowledge, support, and skills—and invited participants to register for a 10-session, 17-hour Parkinson’s Care Partner Training Program comprised of interactive discussions of 21 Parkinson’s-related topics from a movement disorder neurologist and implementation scientist, registered nurse, clinical social worker, and registered dietitian. The clinician and host discuss the topic and respond to participant questions in real-time; sessions are recorded for asynchronous viewing. Participants anonymously completed baseline demographic surveys and a Parkinson’s knowledge test. The latter will be repeated post-intervention with questions on relevance of topics covered, instructor effectiveness, overall satisfaction, and likelihood of recommending the class to other care partners. A 70% cutoff for the latter indicates excellent educational programming. Within-group change will be assessed via t-tests.

Results:

Registration for the informational webinar was 1,351, with 851 opting in to the 10-session training (63% enrollment rate; 82% female, 83% >60 years). At baseline, only 7.5% of participants scored >70/100 on a Parkinson’s knowledge test. 150-350 care partners have joined sessions 1-5 synchronously; the remainder, asynchronously; interim feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

Conclusions:

A comprehensive, live-streamed, 10-session educational series for Parkinson’s care partners yielded high enrollment and engagement after five sessions; final sessions and analyses are forthcoming.