Et, Al

Background A third of family carers of people with dementia report abusive behaviour towards the person for whom they are caring.

Objectives: This review aims to explore the role of self-efficacy (SE) in the health-related quality of life (QoL) of family carers of people with dementia.

Methods: A systematic review of literature identified a range of qualitative and quantitative studies. Search terms related to caring, SE, and dementia. Narrative synthesis was adopted to synthesise the findings.

The aim of this paper is to describe working with the carers (families) of adults with anorexia nervosa (AN), which is different from working with families of younger adolescents. The main difference is in the area of rights and responsibilities of both parties. Moreover, as AN in adults is often a chronic condition, the treatment goal may not focus on recovery, but instead on improvement in quality of life. Thus the spectrum of nature and degree of parental involvement in the treatment of adults with AN is much broader than in children and adolescents.

Purpose – The National Institute of Health Research MHRN established the Feasibility and Support to Timely recruitment for Research (FAST-R) service in 2011, to provide rapid patient and carer feedback on research documents, prior to ethical review. The aims were to improve the feasibility of studies, to speed up regulatory processes and enhance study set up and completion. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how the FAST-R service benefits the review process.

BACKGROUND: Along with classical motor disorders in Parkinson's disease (PD), psychopathological features frequently co-occur, which may increase the caregiver's burden.

AIMS: To identify the profile of psychopathological symptoms in patients with PD and the impact imposed by this condition on the caregiver's burden.

SUBJECTS: Fifty patients with idiopathic PD seen consecutively at the Movement Disorder Outpatient Clinic at the Hospital of State University of Campinas, Brazil, and their 50 respective caregivers were studied.

The need for accurate information about the mental health problems of multicultural communities requires valid measures of mental health for use in a number of languages and cultural contexts. Measures of psychopathological symptoms leading to a diagnosis have been especially criticised for their universal application, without attention to their limitations across cultures. Yet, measures are crucial to assess recovery and the performance of services, and to take account of carer and user views.

This article presents findings from a research study that examined, by observation and interview, the nature of care as a form of social organization in the homes of people with dementia whose care was at least partly provided by relatives or friends. Twenty situations were included in which the carers and people with dementia were interviewed. Each participating pair was observed for an average of nine hours. Change was perceived, on the whole, in negative terms for both caregiver and the person with dementia.

For over three years, Mencap (Nl) has provided and largely funded an ‘Information and Advice Service’ aimed primarily at family carers and people with learning disabilities. The service employs four advisers who cover most of Northern Ireland, offering telephone but also face-to-face contact with enquirers. They have access to a specially developed, computerized database that contains details of local as well as national resources. This paper describes the service and the evaluation process used.

Objectives: Caregiver burden is a key measure in caregiver research and is frequently used as a baseline measure in intervention studies. Previous research has found numerous factors associated with caregiver burden such as the relationship quality between carer and patient, the patient's cognitive ability, behavioural and psychological symptoms displayed by the patient, caregiver gender, adverse life events to name a few. Many studies have investigated these factors singularly however current thought suggests a multi-factorial role and inter-dependence of these factors.