The effect of caregiver support interventions for informal caregivers of community-dwelling frail elderly: a systematic review

Abstract

IntroductionInformal caregivers are important resources for community-dwelling frail elderly. But caring can be challenging. To be able to provide long-term care to the elderly, informal caregivers need to be supported as well. The aim of this study is to review the current best evidence on the effectiveness of different types of support services targeting informal caregivers of community-dwelling frail elderly.MethodsA systematic literature search was performed in Medline, PsychINFO, Ovid Nursing Database, Cinahl, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and British Nursing Index in september 2010.ResultsOverall, the effect of caregiver support interventions is small and also inconsistent between studies. Respite care can be helpful in reducing depression, burden and anger. Interventions at the individual caregivers’ level can be beneficial in reducing or stabilizing depression, burden, stress and role strain. Group support has a positive effect on caregivers’ coping ability, knowledge, social support and reducing depression. Technology-based interventions can reduce caregiver burden, depression, anxiety and stress and improve the caregiver’s coping ability.ConclusionIntegrated support packages where the content of the package is tailored to the individual caregivers’ physical, psychological and social needs should be preferred when supporting informal caregivers of frail elderly. It requires an intense collaboration and coordination between all parties involved.

Effectiveness of Supporting Informal Caregivers of People with Dementia: A Systematic Review of Randomized and Non-Randomized Controlled Trials

“…Although many interventions demonstrated positive impacts on different outcomes such as burden [22,23], quality of life of the caregiver [24], and delay in hospitalization [25]; other similar studies did not find the same benefits [26][27][28]. Inconsistency of the current findings can be explained by the methodological issues caused by the complex nature of this type of research, e.g., [4,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35], such as: different duration of interventions, different intensity and characteristics of interventions, and the variety of caregivers and care-recipients characteristics. Additionally, these interventions often suffer from insufficient statistical power, short follow-up periods, and the use of various instruments to measure outcomes.…”

“…Despite several previous reviews concluded that the interventions under study are overall effective in decreasing or increasing specific outcomes that improve well-being (e.g., depression, self-efficacy), our opinion is that these overall conclusions should be made cautiously due to inconclusive results often caused by methodological issues as has been discussed in other comparable reviews, e.g., [11,12,30,33,37].…”

“…It should also be mentioned that methods and findings were rather inconsistent. This phenomenon, also previously described by others, e.g., [11,12,30,33,99], can still be explained by the heterogeneous nature of supportive strategies caused by differences in content, duration, and intensity; the methodological quality of studies; the variety in outcome measures; and the different characteristics of the caregivers and the care-recipients.…”

Psychometric properties of the Caregiver Preparedness Scale in caregivers of stroke survivors

“…1 The majority of these older adults are cared for by informal caregivers such as family or friends in the community. 2 In the United States, approximately 43.5 million informal caregivers provide care to older adults with chronic disease. 3 In Europe, 125 million people serve as informal caregivers for people with functional limitations in performing activities of daily living (ADL).…”

Facilitating and inhibiting factors to implement telemonitoring: A qualitative study

“…[37] A decrease in number of readmissions is presenting, as a result of heart failure education as part of heart failure programs. Despite the development of heart failure programs, the level adherence to prescribed medications, low-sodium diets and exercise remains lower than needed.…”