25. TIDieR ‐ Tremont 2015.

Study	Tremont 2015
TIDieR item	Experimental intervention	Control intervention
BRIEF NAME	Family Intervention: Telephone Tracking‐Caregiver (FITT‐C).	Telephone Support (TS).
WHY	The theoretical framework of FITT‐C is based on psychosocial transition, transactional stress and coping, and a systems view of family functioning. The three underlying theories of FITT‐C are geared toward enhancing coping within the caregiver through active problem solving and facilitating positive changes within the family system.	The control condition was designed to account for nonspecific therapeutic factors, such as interpersonal contact and relationship. The approach was based on a nondirective control condition.
WHAT materials	Telephone.	Telephone.
PROCEDURES	Focused on providing dementia education, emotional support, directing caregivers to appropriate resources, encouraging caregivers to attend to their physical, emotional, and social needs, and teaching caregivers strategies to cope with ongoing problems. The FITT method consisted of an initial orientation and psycho‐ education call that involved providing caregivers with a rationale of FITT, an introduction to the resource materials, a description of future telephone contacts, and education about dementia and effects of caregiving. The remaining contacts identified changes since the last call, assessed key areas for the caregiver (i.e., health, functioning, mood, social support, and family life), and provided interventions and psychoeducation to help caregivers solve problems and use family resources. The focus of the final two calls changed to identifying helpful aspects of contacts and how these functions could be met after termination. After the final call, the therapist prepared a letter briefly highlighting the progress during the intervention and encouraged the caregiver to continue to develop and use adaptive coping strategies.	The primary goal of this condition was to provide nondirective support for caregivers through empathic and reflective listening and open‐ended questioning. The role of the therapist was to provide unconditional positive regard to caregivers and to establish a supportive relationship. Therapists were discouraged from providing directive strategies, such as education, problem‐solving, advice‐giving, or task directives. However, education was not withheld if the caregiver had the wrong information.
WHO provided	Individuals recruited to serve as therapists had experience working with dementia patients and/or care‐ givers or psychotherapy experience working with adults. Therapists were required to be master’s level and received training in dementia and caregiving. FITT‐C therapists received additional training in the intervention method.
HOW delivered	Telephone.
WHERE occurred	At home.
WHEN and HOW MUCH	16 telephone contacts over 6 months. Although initial telephone contacts had standardized durations (approximately 60 minutes), follow‐up contacts varied depending on the severity of caregiver problems (15–30 minutes).
TAILORING	Interventions were comprehensively designed, not tailored to cover individual or unmeet needs.
MODIFICATIONS	None described.
HOW WELL planned	Quality control was implemented by weekly supervision of both the FITT‐C and TS therapists. All telephone contacts were audiotaped, and a subset was reviewed during supervision sessions to ensure adherence and to better guide therapists’ intervention strategies. Any deviations from the treatment protocol were brought to the therapist’s attention for remediation.
HOW WELL actual	The number of missed telephone calls from 16 planned calls was comparable between conditions with an average of 1.81 missed calls for FITT‐C and 1.22 for TS. The average call length was slightly longer for the FITT‐C group (37 minutes) compared with TS (30 minutes).