The Caregiver Advise Record and Enable (CARE) Act and Compassion Fatigue in the United States

The transition from hospital to home can be complicated, leaving family caregivers in stressful situations that they may not know how to handle. The burden that is placed on these individuals has led researchers to focus on the public health implications of caregiving in hopes of identifying at-risk caregivers. This quantitative analysis identified what relationships exist between caregiver compassion fatigue among family caregivers and training or education received per the Caregiver Advise Record and Enable (CARE) Act and if education influences readmission rates. A purposive sample of 385 family caregivers participated in this study. The Care Transitions Measure (CTM-15), the Caregiver Reaction Scale (CRS), and the LACE (length of stay, acuity of admission, comorbidities, and emergency department visits) index were used to explore the relationship between caregiver education received, caregiver compassion fatigue, and rates of readmission. The results of this study did not support a significant relationship between the education that caregivers receive according to the CARE Act and readmission rates of the care receiver when utilizing the CTM-15 and the LACE index but it did support a relationship between the caregiver\u27s compassion fatigue and the amount of training the caregivers receive from the CARE Act in some areas of the CRS. While research continues to identify flaws in the caregiver transition, the CRS and CTM-15 show a significant relationship in some areas of the CRS, identifying some caregivers are better educated prior to leaving the hospital and with a potential reduction in compassion fatigue