Caregivers' experiences and perspectives on caring for the elderly during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A qualitative systematic review

Abstract

Aims:The goal of this study was to explore caregivers' experiences, perspectives, emotions, knowledge and needs in caring for older people during the COVID-19 pandemic. These included, but were not limited to, experiences in hospital care, home care and nursing home care. Background: Because of the high mortality rate associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, senior care is critical. During the COVID-19 pandemic, caregivers caring for older people have had unique experiences potentially affecting the quality of care provided. This topic has received substantial attention since the start of the pandemic and has been studied by numerous researchers. However, experiences may differ among countries and time periods. In addition, no qualitative systematic reviews on this topic appear to have been published. Evaluation: In this systematic review of qualitative studies, data were collected from the following electronic databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), Science Direct and Psy-cINFO. Titles and abstracts were screened according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, full texts were screened and the methodological quality of included studies was assessed with the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist for Qualitative Research by two independent reviewers. Key issue(s): A total of 141 findings were extracted and aggregated into 20 categories; 6 synthesized findings were identified. Conclusion: This review indicates caregivers' experiences and perceptions regarding caring for older people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of a qualitative systematic review show that caregivers' emotions, cognitions and knowledge have affected the quality of caregivers' senior care services during the pandemic. Caregivers caring for older adults should practise self-awareness, understanding their knowledge and attitudes to improve the quality of senior care. Moreover, health care administrators and policymakers should make concerted efforts to cultivate a better working environment.

Perceived loss of support to community caregivers during the COVID‐19 pandemic in the United States

“…Care recipients who were receiving support due to hearing/vision loss or feeble/mobility/back problems were more likely to lose support from formerly supportive network alters. A possible mechanism driving this effect is that social distancing restricted in‐person support to many care recipients and, for many, support shifted to electronic interfaces out of necessity (Nielsen et al, 2021; Zhang et al, 2022). Care recipients with vision/hearing problems may not have been able to take full advantage of available electronic communication technology due to their conditions and lack of available technology that mitigated these physical limitations.…”