Development of competencies to strengthen support for caregivers and enhance their capacity to provide care.

Abstract

Nearly 53 million family caregivers in the United States provide care to older adults, performing tasks ranging from meal preparation and grocery shopping, to wound care and medication management. While caregivers are critical to the health care system, they are not adequately supported to serve in this role. Successfully integrating family caregivers into the health care team and supporting their health and well-being is a public health priority and should be a focus for clinical education programs. To address this gap, the Family Caregiving Institute at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis developed the Interprofessional Family Caregiving Competencies as a framework to guide the development of curricula to enhance health care providers' skills, knowledge, and abilities in family caregiving. Twenty-one competencies are categorized within the following four domains: the nature of family caregiving; family caregiving identification and assessment; providing family-centered care; and the context of family caregiving.