Knowledge, Practice and Needs of Caregiver in the Care of Older People: A Review

Abstract

Caregivers play a significant role in the care of older people. However, their knowledge, practice and needs in the care of older people have been poorly characterised. Therefore, this review was performed to provide an overview of caregivers’ knowledge, practice and needs in the care of older people. A literature search was conducted using the following electronic databases: ProQuest Health and Medical Complete, Wiley Online Library, EBSCO Host, Science Direct and Scopus. Search terms used were “older people”, “caregiver”, “knowledge”, “practice” and “needs”. Two reviewers independently screened the studies and the extracted data. A total of 117 articles were initially found using the above keywords. After using a set of criteria in the screening process, nine articles were found relevant to include in this review. This review of the articles presents a summary of (1) caregivers’ knowledge about the care of older people, (2) caregivers’ practice in the care of older people and (3) caregivers’ needs in the care of older people. The analysis reveals that most of the caregivers addressed a lack of knowledge about and poor practice in the care of older people. This review also offers important insight into the needs of caregivers. Hence, this review recommends further studies on knowledge, practice and needs in the care of older people to identify contextual challenges and provide evidence-based solutions to improve caregivers’ knowledge, practice and needs in the care of older people.