Empowering Dementia Carers With an iSupport Virtual Assistant (e-DiVA) in Asia-Pacific Regional Countries: Protocol for a Pilot Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial

Tuan Anh Nguyen; Kham Tran; Adrian Esterman; Bianca Brijnath; Lily Dongxia Xiao; Penelope Schofield; Sunil Bhar; Nilmini Wickramasinghe; Ronald Sinclair; Thu Ha Dang; Sarah Cullum; Yuda Turana; Ladson Hinton; Katrin Seeher; Andre Q Andrade; Maria Crotty; Susan Kurrle; Stefanie Freel; Thang Pham; Thanh Binh Nguyen; Henry Brodaty

doi:10.2196/33572

Empowering Dementia Carers With an iSupport Virtual Assistant (e-DiVA) in Asia-Pacific Regional Countries: Protocol for a Pilot Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial

JMIR Res Protoc. 2021 Nov 16;10(11):e33572. doi: 10.2196/33572.

Authors

Tuan Anh Nguyen^#^{1

2

3}, Kham Tran^#^{1

2}, Adrian Esterman², Bianca Brijnath¹, Lily Dongxia Xiao⁴, Penelope Schofield⁵, Sunil Bhar⁵, Nilmini Wickramasinghe⁵, Ronald Sinclair⁶, Thu Ha Dang⁵, Sarah Cullum⁷, Yuda Turana⁸, Ladson Hinton⁹, Katrin Seeher¹⁰, Andre Q Andrade¹¹, Maria Crotty¹², Susan Kurrle¹³, Stefanie Freel¹⁴, Thang Pham¹⁵, Thanh Binh Nguyen¹⁵, Henry Brodaty¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ Social Gerontology Division, National Ageing Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia.
² UniSA Clinical and Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
³ Health Strategy and Policy Institute, Ministry of Health, Hanoi, Vietnam.
⁴ College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.
⁵ Department of Psychology, School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
⁶ Faculty of Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.
⁷ Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
⁸ School of Medicine, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
⁹ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA, United States.
¹⁰ Department of Mental Health and Substance Use, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
¹¹ Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
¹² College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia.
¹³ Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
¹⁴ Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
¹⁵ Department of Neurology and Alzheimer Disease, Vietnam National Geriatric Hospital, Hanoi, Vietnam.
¹⁶ Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 34783660
PMCID: PMC8663455
DOI: 10.2196/33572

Abstract

Background: Dementia is a global public health priority with an estimated prevalence of 150 million by 2050, nearly two-thirds of whom will live in the Asia-Pacific region. Dementia creates significant care needs for people with the disease, their families, and carers. iSupport is a self-help platform developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to provide education, skills training, and support to dementia carers. It has been adapted in some contexts (Australia, India, the Netherlands, and Portugal). Carers using the existing adapted versions have identified the need to have a more user-friendly version that enables them to identify solutions for immediate problems quickly in real time. The iSupport virtual assistant (iSupport VA) is being developed to address this gap and will be evaluated in a randomized controlled trial (RCT).

Objective: This paper reports the protocol of a pilot RCT evaluating the iSupport VA.

Methods: Seven versions of iSupport VA will be evaluated in Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Vietnam in a pilot RCT. Feasibility, acceptability, intention to use, and preliminary impact on carer-perceived stress of the iSupport VA intervention will be assessed.

Results: This study was funded by the e-ASIA Joint Research Program in November 2020. From January to July 2023, we will enroll 140 dementia carers (20 carers per iSupport VA version) for the pilot RCT. The study has been approved by the Human Research Committee, University of South Australia, Australia (203455).

Conclusions: This protocol outlines how a technologically enhanced version of the WHO iSupport program-the iSupport VA-will be evaluated. The findings from this intervention study will provide evidence on the feasibility and acceptability of the iSupport VA intervention, which will be the basis for conducting a full RCT to assess the effectiveness of the iSupport VA. The study will be an important reference for countries planning to adapt and enhance the WHO iSupport program using digital health solutions.

Trial registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12621001452886; https://tinyurl.com/afum5tjz.

International registered report identifier (irrid): PRR1-10.2196/33572.

Keywords: Dementia; digital health; iSupport; informal carer; virtual assistant.

©Tuan Anh Nguyen, Kham Tran, Adrian Esterman, Bianca Brijnath, Lily Dongxia Xiao, Penelope Schofield, Sunil Bhar, Nilmini Wickramasinghe, Ronald Sinclair, Thu Ha Dang, Sarah Cullum, Yuda Turana, Ladson Hinton, Katrin Seeher, Andre Q Andrade, Maria Crotty, Susan Kurrle, Stefanie Freel, Thang Pham, Thanh Binh Nguyen, Henry Brodaty. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 16.11.2021.

Grants and funding

001/WHO_/World Health Organization/International