Literature review

Aims and objectives: To identify and review the literature on rural mothers’ experiences in caring for a child with a chronic health condition. Background: Families living with a child who has a chronic health condition experience many challenges; these are often amplified for families living in rural areas, where issues such as the distance from services add further challenges the family must manage. Like many children, rural children with chronic health conditions are primarily cared for by their mothers.

Background: Despite standardization in disease assessments and curative interventions for childhood cancer, palliative assessments and psychosocial interventions remain diverse and disparate.

Objectives: To identify, analyze and synthesize qualitative studies on caregivers’ experiences of contributions to the self‐care of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Background: COPD patients perform daily self‐care behaviours to manage the disease. With aging and disease progression, patients need to rely on the contributions of informal caregivers, usually family members, for disease management. Caregivers’ normal or habitual contributions to patients’ self‐care have not yet been completely investigated.

Background: Family carers increasingly take on the responsibility of self-management of dementia as the condition progresses. However, research on this topic is scarce. Objectives: This scoping review aimed to identify the key characteristics related to self-management of dementia by carers including its components, theoretical/conceptual frameworks that underpinned these components and measurements. Methods: A scoping review was conducted in 8 databases and 16 publications met the inclusion criteria.

Purpose: Family interventions have been developed to support carers of people with mental illness, but not much is known about how such interventions can improve carers' physical health. This review aimed to identify and analyze existing family interventions that addressed the physical health of carers. Methods: A scoping review was conducted to identify peer-reviewed journal articles on family interventions with physical health components.

Purpose: Family members are a part of the team to improve the outcomes of the person with cancer. Families require support and information to optimise their care, however, their needs are often unacknowledged and within clinical areas there is a lack of family focused interventions. Studies highlight families' needs but lack a family representation. The aim was to explore research with family as the unit-of-care during cancer treatment.

Background: MS is a common, neurological disease and it's unpredictable, progressive disabling nature can have a devastating effect on patients, their families' and carers.

Objectives: The objective of this review was to identify, appraise and synthesise qualitative research that explores the experience of the disclosure of a dementia diagnosis from the perspectives of clinicians, patients and carers. Method: A systematic search of four databases, grey literature and reference lists identified 13 studies, which met the required criteria to be included in the review. All were appraised using a quality appraisal tool. Data were extracted and synthesised using a meta-ethnographic approach.

BACKGROUND: More than 16 million men in the United States are acting in the role of family caregiver. Men are usually viewed as not being caring simply because they provide care differently than women. However, this is not the case. OBJECTIVES: This article explores male caregiving from the perspective of family and professional roles. METHODS: A review of the literature related to men in the caregiving role was conducted. This review included only men providing care to a family member and was limited to men caring for an adult.

This paper explored the support needs of family caregivers of people living with a mental illness in Iran. This descriptive study focused on the experiences of 20 family caregivers as well as the views of 29 professional support workers through individual face-to-face interviews. From these interviews three key themes emerged in regards to the care needs of family caregivers: (i) social support; (ii) emotional support; and (iii) safety and security.