Caregivers to older adults require support: A scoping review of their priorities

Abstract

The vast majority of older adults who are chronically ill rely on informal caregivers 7 days a week (Statistics Canada, 2020) and many care services are provided informally by family members or friends, rather than healthcare professionals (Barello et al., 2019). These individuals, known as caregivers, are invaluable to healthcare systems.A concept analysis by Hermanns and Mastel-Smith (2012), comprehensive of nursing, sociology and psychological perspectives, defines caregiving as a process of helping another person in physical, mental, emotional and social domains when they are unable to do so for themselves. Taking on a caregiving role is extremely complex and one thing that is clearly recognisable from research, policy and practice, is that caregivers require support.New and experienced caregivers alike may experience difficulty accessing assistance, community resources, support and adequate finances (Garcia-Ptacek et al., 2019). Therefore, the necessity of developing accessible and acceptable services that address the range of needs is critical to assisting this population (Harrop et al., 2014).However, the priorities caregivers have for support must align with

The impact on employment and education of caregiving for a family member with young onset dementia: A scoping review

“…Scoping reviews are best suited to examining the range of literature available around a certain topic and identifying gaps within that literature (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005). This study followed the Arksey and O’Malley iterative six-stage approach (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005) as it has demonstrated rigour in various prior scoping studies, including those on caregiving (Hall et al, 2022; Lee et al, 2022). The six stages are (i) Identifying the research question; (ii) Identifying relevant studies; (iii) Study selection; (iv) Charting the data; (v) Collating, summarising, and reporting the results, and (vi) Consulting with stakeholders.…”