Few programs specifically aim to raise healthcare professionals’ assurance when facing ethical dilemmas in dementia care, even though training initiatives have repeatedly demonstrated benefits for staff knowledge and self-efficacy. Still, mixed results reported in existing studies regarding the true value of these educational efforts emphasize the demand for more precise, purpose-built solutions. The CARE intervention was created expressly to build confidence in ethical decision-making and to close this shortfall. This research investigates the impact of the CARE intervention on boosting ethical self-efficacy among healthcare staff who care for individuals with dementia, with particular focus on those entering the program with particularly low self-efficacy. The study adopted a non-experimental pre-post evaluation approach. The CARE intervention was provided to healthcare professionals (n = 86), and their ethical self-efficacy was recorded both prior to and following participation. We anticipated notable shifts in average ethical self-efficacy scores from before to after the program across all participants, with the strongest gains predicted among those starting with low baseline scores, as this group was expected to gain the most. Analyses included paired t-tests for the overall group and Wilcoxon tests for the low pre-score subgroup.
No meaningful difference was observed in the full participant group. In contrast, individuals who began with low self-efficacy showed a clear, statistically significant increase in their scores after the intervention ended. The CARE intervention offers promising potential to strengthen ethical self-efficacy, especially for healthcare professionals who initially feel less confident. Such focused efforts are critical for narrowing existing confidence gaps when addressing ethical problems in dementia care. These gains carry important consequences for staff wellbeing and the standard of care delivered. Subsequent investigations should track long-term outcomes and use larger samples to improve the extent to which the results can be applied and their durability over time.
