Interventions for Family Members After Long-Term Care Placement of a Relative With Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objectives: The current systematic review aimed to identify, appraise, and synthesize the available evidence regarding interventions that assisted family members of long-term care facility residents with dementia to cope with stressful situations. Methods: A search of published articles in eight databases was performed. Results: In total, 1,293 records were identified, with six studies included in this systematic review. Interventions were categorized as education/skill training, psychoeducation, and psychosocial support. The risk of bias across the included studies varied from moderate to high. The intervention components, dose, and delivery methods differed widely with mixed results. The interventions showed potential benefits for reducing family members' stress-related outcomes (e.g., stress appraisal, guilt) and residents' problematic behaviors. Yet, meta-analysis yielded a non-significant pooled effect for reducing family members' depressive symptoms (mean difference = 1.38, 95% confidence interval [–2.27, 5.04], The current systematic review aimed to identify, appraise, and synthesize the available evidence regarding interventions that assisted family members of long-term care facility residents with dementia to cope with stressful situations. A search of published articles in eight databases was performed. In total, 1,293 records were identified, with six studies included in this systematic review. Interventions were categorized as education/skill training, psychoeducation, and psychosocial support. The risk of bias across the included studies varied from moderate to high. The intervention components, dose, and delivery methods differed widely with mixed results. The interventions showed potential benefits for reducing family members' stress-related outcomes (e.g., stress appraisal, guilt) and residents' problematic behaviors. Yet, meta-analysis yielded a non-significant pooled effect for reducing family members' depressive symptoms (mean difference = 1.38, 95% confidence interval [–2.27, 5.04], p = 0.46). Conclusions: Evidence in this field is currently insufficient and more well-designed studies with larger sample sizes and use of theoretical frameworks are needed.