Objectives

The overall objectives of the DemiCare+ projects are:

to improve the DemiCare app by adding modules for: symptom monitoring, developing resilience, and providing PP- and CBT-based micro-interventions for reducing mild depressive symptomatology;
to implement the resulting DemiCare+ system in 3 different healthcare systems;
and to perform a hybrid effectiveness-implementation study to assess the impact of DemiCare+ and derive lessons for further uptake of the intervention.

Project planning

DemiCare+ aims at empowering informal caregivers in ways that allows them to remain in their care role without developing negative health consequences.

The project has the following crucial milestones:

Requirements analysis completed: The adoption of the diversity-sensitive resilience model as well as the ethical and data management are defined (project month 6).

Co-design of the services and interaction completed: the service concept and interaction design as well as all related aspects (i.e. reactive measurements, data fusion concept, micro intervention) have been defined (project month 12) 

Formal care services integrated: Other relevant services identified and in DemiCare+ integrated (project month 24).

Integrated service prototype tested in the lab: A lab-based study with potential end users has been performed and implications for the improvement of the interaction and service design have been identified (project month 16)

DemiCare+ services implemented and validated: Type 3 effectiveness-implementation hybrid study in Austria, Netherlands and Romania performed (project month 36).

Ecosystem recommendations identified: Multi-domain intervention and implementation strategies and country specific recommendations for all participating countries have been identified and documented (project month 36). 

The work plan is divided in 5 work packages (WPs) to organise the work according to the project’s objectives:

WP 1: Project management

WP1 is dedicated to project management and thus includes all activities to ensure the smooth implementation of the project and collaboration between the project partners, i.e. project administration and communication, quality management, and data management and ethical compliance.

WP 2: Requirement analysis

WP2 aims to identify requirements for a resilience model for informal caregivers and to develop design guidelines for context-specific ethical and data management requirements.

WP 3: Service design and co-creation

WP3 focuses on the design of the services through co-design of the overall service concept and interaction design, as well as the micro interventions. Furthermore, the reactive measurements (i.e., questionnaires) will be developed, a data-fusion concept for the prediction of risk of depression in informal caregivers defined, and a concept for the integration of formal care services elaborated.

WP 4: Service integration

WP4 is dedicated to service implementation and thus aims to specify API interfaces and interaction design concepts for the integration of formal care services, as well as the development of system prototypes for preliminary user studies for an early evaluation of the DemiCare+ services.

WP 5: Service implementation

WP5 will assess the effectiveness of the DemiCare+ depression prevention intervention and explore the feasibility and acceptability of the system in real-life settings. Furthermore, the WP aims to identify barriers and facilitators to the implementation and to develop strategies for scaling up and integrating the system into existing caregiver support services.

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