thematic synthesis

Background: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease, associated with impaired quality of life for patients and caregivers. As treatment is largely supportive, early involvement of palliative care (PC) is recommended as standard of care. Despite this, literature surrounding PC information needs is limited. Objectives: To explore the PC information needs of patients with ALS and their caregivers and identify gaps in the literature.

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.

Aims: To systematically identify, evaluate and synthesize the available qualitative evidence on the mealtime care experiences of informal caregivers of people with dementia.; Design: A qualitative evidence synthesis using the Thomas and Harden method.; Data Sources: All qualitative and mixed-method studies in English and Chinese were retrieved from PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane, CINAHL, CNKI, WanFang, and Vip from the inception of each database until November 2019.; Review Methods: Two researchers independently selected the studi