Journal of International Dental and Medical Research ISSN 1309-100X Basic Long-Term Care Training for Informal http://www.jidmr.com Dinni Agustin and et al Volume ∙ 12 ∙ Number ∙ 4 ∙ 2019 Page 1676 Basic Long-Term Care Training for Informal Caregivers by the EPA Returnees and Local Trainers in Depok City, West Java, Indonesia Dinni Agustin 1,2* , Susiana Nugraha 3 , Tri Suratmi 3 , Fajar Susanti 4 , Yuniardini Wimardhani 5 , Tri Budi W. Rahardjo 1 1. Centre for Family and Ageing Studies (CeFAS), Universitas Respati Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia 2. Faculty of Management and Bisnis Administration, Universitas Respati Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia 3. Faculty of Public Health, Post Graduate Program, Universitas Respati Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia 4. Faculty of Nursing, Universitas Respati Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia 5. Department of Oral Medicine, Faculty of Dentistry, Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia Abstract Indonesia’s elderly population is increasing annually and is estimated to reach 28.8 million or 11.34% by 2020, with a life expectancy of 71.1 years. Significant population growth may be accompanied by issues affecting aspects of peoples’ lives and their families and also communities. Training of informal caregivers in developing countries is required for providing long-term care (LTC) to elderly people so that they can stay at home as long as possible. Our objectives were to enable caregivers in the communities to engage in LTC for the elderly, utilize Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) caregiver returnees as trainers for knowledge transfer from Japan, and compare skills and knowledge of EPA returnees and local trainers. Total 150 informal caregivers engaged in the training, which consisted 50 hours basic material. The caregiver’s knowledge was compared before and after training, and EPA returnees and local trainers were observed during their training sessions. While the training was effective to improve informal caregiver’s understanding of LTC, it was insufficient for improving their overall ability to provide LTC services to older persons. Knowledge delivered was almost similar between EPA returnees and local trainers. Clinical article (J Int Dent Med Res 2019; 12(4): 1676-1680) Keywords: long-term care, training, informal caregivers. Received date: 11 November 2018 Accept date: 24 February 2019 Introduction Indonesia is one of the developing countries that experiences population aging. This means that life expectancy at birth is longer, which is currently 67 years for men and 71 years for women. As a result, the number of people aged 60 years and over is increasing, from 19.32 million (8.37%) in 2009 to 28.7 million (11.34%) in 2020. 1-3 One of the most important problems due to the increasing number of older persons is in terms of their health conditions, which experience many changes due to the emergence of various diseases and decreased capacities of the body’s physiological reserves as the aging process takes place. These conditions require professional handling by educated caregivers or family members. 4,5 In developing countries such as Indonesia, providing long-term care (LTC) support which allows older persons to stay at home as long as possible to help improve their health conditions is mostly desired. The older persons in need of LTC are those who tend to have some chronic and/or complex health problems, therefore experiencing disabilities/limitations whether physically or mentally, or both. These conditions include stroke, dementia, and disabilities related to various functional disorders. 6-8 The previous results study on the development of LTC in the Depok city conducted in 2017, showed that the concept of LTC was still not widely understood by the health center staffs, therefore Community Health Center or Puskesmas officers had to have first-hand knowledge about LTC as they would be a place for cadres to pose questions, and further these cadres would have to disseminate their knowledge to the older persons’ facilitators. 9 Thus in 2017, capacity building on LTC was held *Corresponding author: Dinni Agustin - Centre for Family and Ageing Studies (CeFAS) - Faculty of Management and Business Administration Universitas Respati Indonesia Email: dinniagustin126@yahoo.com