2. TIDier ‐ Au 2019.

Study	Au 2019
TIDieR item	Experimental intervention	Control intervention
BRIEF NAME	Psychoeducation with behavioral activation (TBA).	General Monitoring (TMG).
WHY	Behavioral activation (BA) focuses on constructing reinforcement contingencies that increase functional behavior and self‐efficacy. Self‐efficacy refers to the person’s beliefs about the abilities to exercise control on the events affecting their lives. The intervention was adapted from the Chinese Version of the Coping with Caregiving.	General discussion about the psychoeducation program and information packet.
WHAT materials	Written information, including the forms for pleasant event scheduling, was mailed to participants before the program started.	Information packet.
PROCEDURES	Four weekly sessions of psychoeducation and eight sessions of behavioral activation. Themes of the psychoeducation component were as follows. Session 1 (week 1): · Symptoms and associated behavioral changes in dementia · Stages in dementia · Caregiving roles and demands · Effects on caregivers Session 2 (week 2): · Physical, social and psychological consequence of stress · Identifying stress reactions · Awareness of stress · Stress and well‐being Session 3 (week 3): · The effect of life events on mood · Tracking daily/ weekly events · Identifying pleasant events · Scheduling pleasant events Session 4 (week 4): · Communication needs to family members · Types of communications: passive, aggressive and assertive · Resources available in the community · Planning in the future Themes of the behavioral activation component were: · Session 1 – Review the present use of time. Using the monitoring form · Session 2 – Brain‐storm pleasant events. Scheduling pleasant activities · Session 3 – Review scheduling of events. Discuss how to improve · Session 4 – Review modifications. Consolidate gains on scheduling · Session 5 – Review present social support. Explore new sources of support · Session 6 – Examine communication skills. Explore new options · Session 7 – Review new communications. Discuss how to improve · Session 8 – Review modification. Consolidate gains on support	All TGM participants received four weekly psycho‐education sessions over the phone with the same contents as in the TBA group. These caregivers were then assigned to eight bi‐weekly sessions of general monitoring with no BA intervention. Each of these sessions started with checking in with the caregiver through inviting them to update their caregiving situation. Caregivers were then guided to discuss one of the following topics at each session in this order: 1. caregiver’s health 2. care‐recipient’s needs 3. caregiver’s routines 4. social support. As there were a total of eight sessions, the last four sessions repeated the order of the first four. While some caregivers might report on attempts they made on their own initiative to improve their scheduling and communication, no specific attempt was made to ask them to review these attempts.
WHO provided	An interventionist with a degree in social work delivered all the four sessions of psycho‐education. Six paraprofessional coaches, between 50 and 60 years old and with an undergraduate degree in helping or service professions, delivered the BA or MG interventions, or carried out monitoring. A social worker and a clinical psychologist provided the training and facilitated weekly supervision separately for TBA and TGM coaches.
HOW delivered	Individually over the telephone.
WHERE occurred	At home.
WHEN and HOW MUCH	Twelve sessions: sessions 1 to 4 were delivered weekly and sessions 5 to 12 were delivered biweekly. Each session lasted about 20 minutes.
TAILORING	Interventions were comprehensively designed, not tailored to cover individual or unmeet needs.
MODIFICATIONS	None described.
HOW WELL planned	The program fidelity was assessed by a rating system built into recording form. At the end of each session, all interventionists, including the paraprofessionals, were asked to rate to what extent they were able to follow the protocol for each of the four PE sessions (3 = fully; 2 = adequately with at least 60% of the material covered; 1 = slightly; 0 = not at all). A similar procedure was adopted for each of the 8 sessions for both TBA and TGM. In addition, 10 cases from TBA and 10 cases from TGM were audiotaped. Interventionists’ adherence to the intervention protocol was assessed by two graduate students who had received eight hours of training on the coding scheme. The sessions were coded with reference to four core TBA strategies (activity planning, review to improve on scheduling, develop new help‐seeking communication skills and review to improve on communications) and four core TGM strategies (updating on caregiving situation, health and needs of the caregiver and the care‐recipient, daily routines and family communications).
HOW WELL actual	As planned. Minimal deviations to the main components of the intervention.