Caregivers who accessed, attended and completed the intervention
In site 3, the two caregivers who were allocated to the control group subsequently identified as high priority and were referred to financial counselling. All six caregivers enrolled in site 3 engaged with the financial counsellor, but no follow-up data were provided. Across the other RCT sites, no other intervention or priority 1 caregivers engaged with the financial counsellor. In site 5, where there were 44 attending caregivers, all appointments were conducted by phone due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Two-thirds of caregivers used one appointment; 14% used two appointments; 16% used three appointments and 2% used four appointments. Four caregivers missed one appointment and two caregivers missed two, and all were rescheduled. The financial counsellor spent an average of 1.9 hours (SD 1.1) in meetings with attending caregivers (range 0.5–4.75 hours), and an average of 2.2 hours (SD 2.2) outside of meetings on each caregiver’s case (range 0.5–11 hours). By 6 months postreferral, cases were fully closed for 32/44 (73%) caregivers and partially closed (mostly due to disengagement) for 12/44 (27%).In site 5, the most common issues facing caregivers were utility debts (32/44, 73%), awaiting government entitlements (‘Centrelink’, 19/44, 43%) and needing material aid or emergency relief (12/44, 27%). Eighteen per cent of caregivers had borrowed from friends and families; other debts and loans were less frequent. While no caregivers faced bankruptcy, half the caregivers disclosed priority 1 indicators, such as imminent eviction or disconnection of utilities, or being threatened with legal action (n=17/44 (39%) for each category).