Cited by 210Dementia and Cognitive Impairment ResearchNursing care and researchFamily Caregiving in Mental Illness

What do family caregivers of people with dementia need? A mixed‐method systematic review

Open access
Bressan, V, Visintini, Chiara, Palese, Alvisa·2020·Health & Social Care in the Community

Abstract

Caring for people with dementia is a major challenge for relatives and society worldwide. Understanding the family caregivers' needs is crucial to promote their care-giving role during the disease trajectory. The aim of this mixed-method systematic review was to identify and synthetise the existing literature on the needs of family caregivers of people with dementia at home. PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and PsycINFO databases were systematically explored to find quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method studies published between 2009 and 2019. A total of 1,196 citations were retrieved and 34 studies were included in the review. The variety of interrelated needs emerged from studies has been summarised in four themes: (a) Being supported, (b) Receiving accessible and personalised information, (c) Being trained and educated to care for their beloved with dementia and (d) Finding a balance. Care-giving for individuals with dementia is an ever-changing process characterised by continuous adjustments to their needs. The majority of a family caregivers' needs are oriented towards receiving support, help in offering daily care and finding a balance between the care-giving role and their own personal needs. For family caregivers, receiving information is a priority to improve their knowledge and to develop coping abilities, care skills and strategies aimed at promoting a balance between care assistance duties and their own needs. They also need social, psychological and emotional support and access to flexible, tailored and timely formal care. Further studies are recommended to detect changes in family caregivers' needs throughout the disease progression in order to tailor formal care offered by social and healthcare services.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/hsc.13048

Cites

72 of 72 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Joanna Briggs Institute (2019). Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewer's Manual 4th Edition. Retrieved from https://wiki.joann abrig gs.org/displ ay/ MANUA L/About +this+Manual.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Bressan, V, Visintini, C., & Palese, A.
Affiliations
University of Udine (IT)
Corresponding author
Palese, Alvisa
Venue
Health & Social Care in the Community
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2020-06-16
Volume
28
Issue
6
Pages
1942-1960
ISSN
  • 0966-0410 (ISSN-L)
  • 1365-2524
OpenAlex
W3035609312
Cited by
210
References
72
Citations by year
2026: 22 · 2025: 56 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 1
FWCI
3.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Health & Social Care in the Community (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
EDEN:
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › Pharmacy › Nursing care and research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Family Caregiving in Mental Illness
Keywords
family caregivers, dementia, caregiver needs, home care, caregiver support, caregiver education, information needs, work-family balance, emotional support, formal care services, disease progression
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Dementia, Family, Health Services Needs and Demand, Humans, Social Support, Socioeconomic Factors, Stress, Psychological, Caregivers, Needs Assessment

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review