Return Home Interviews for Missing Older Adults With Dementia: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Introduction Persons living with dementia are at risk of becoming lost. When a person is returned home safely after a missing incident, an interview with the person or care partner may identify ways to prevent repeat incidents. It is not known if these interviews are being conducted for this population. Objectives: The purpose of this review was to understand return home interviews and whether they are being used with persons who have dementia. Methods Scholarly and grey literature were searched in 20 databases. Articles were included from any language, year, study design if they included terms resembling “return home interview”, “missing,” “lost,” or “runaway”. Results Eleven articles in scholarly, and 94 in grey literature sources were included, most from the United Kingdom. The majority of academic (55%) and grey (61%) articles were related to missing children, and none were specifically about persons living with dementia. Interviews were typically conducted within 72 hours after a missing person was returned, and by police or charitable organizations. The main reasons were to understand the causes of the incident and confirm the missing person’s safety, identify support needs, and to provide support to reduce repeat missing incidents. Conclusion Existing reasons for interviews can also apply to persons with dementia. This review informs future research on return home interviews. It also informs community organizations, and police services interested in adopting this practice with persons living with dementia. Evaluations would confirm if these interviews can reduce repeat incidents and help keep people with dementia safe.

Examining the Connection Between Missing Persons and Victimization: An Application of Lifestyle Exposure Theory

“…Additional studies could add clarity to this, such as considering missingness and the sex/ gender gap in victimization risk. One way to gather these necessary disaggregated insights could involve instituting some form of a police follow-up inquiry (e.g., return home interviews; see Neubauer et al, 2021) with located missing persons. For instance, questions could be asked about if a victimization incident played a role in the missing occurrence or if the person experienced victimization while missing.…”

Preparative collaboration for missing persons with dementia in Sweden: a pilot study

“…Internationally, persons with dementia constitute one of the largest and expanding groups of persons at high risk of going missing and suffering severe consequences of missing incidents (Koester and Stooksbury, 1995; Bonny et al. , 2016; Neubauer et al ., 2021). Research on missing persons with dementia is also well represented internationally in research related to ageing (Bantry White and Montgomery, 2015; Shalev Greene et al.…”

“…Regarding prevention, risk management and response to missing persons with dementia, efficient collaboration amongst agencies, such as social services and police (Hayden and Shalew Greene, 2018), or with volunteers, is central. Research has also been carried out on collaboration with persons with dementia to prevent them from going missing by means of guidelines and by conducting interviews regarding well-being once they have returned home (Neubauer et al. , 2021).…”