Korea

Background: Consistent with global trends, population aging in South Korea is necessitating increasing admissions to intensive care units (ICU). Design: This integrative review describes the challenges experienced by family caregivers of ICU patients in South Korea and evaluates relevant intervention studies. Using Whittemore and Knafl's methods, we identify and synthesize findings from 20 (14 descriptive and 6 experimental design) articles and evaluate study quality.

This study determines the relative effects of functional impairment, cognitive impairment, and duration of care of the elderly on caregivers' depression, and identifies the factors that influence this relationship. The variables were entered individually, based on a logical order in the path modeling. For mediators, the order of three types of social support was assumed to be financial support, instrumental support, and emotional support.