Palese, Alvisa

Caring for people with dementia is a major challenge for relatives and society worldwide. Understanding the family caregivers' needs is crucial to promote their care‐giving role during the disease trajectory. The aim of this mixed‐method systematic review was to identify and synthetise the existing literature on the needs of family caregivers of people with dementia at home. PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and PsycINFO databases were systematically explored to find quantitative, qualitative and mixed‐method studies published between 2009 and 2019.

Background Informal caregiving offered by family members has been widely studied in the community setting, but little attention to date has been dedicated to that offered at the hospital level. Aims To describe the proportion of patients admitted to acute medical units receiving care from informal caregivers as decided by the family and to identify the factors affecting the numbers of care shifts performed by informal caregivers.