Journal article

INTRODUCTION: This study determined whether the multicomponent rehabilitation programme of a memory clinic had positive outcomes on ameliorating everyday functioning, quality of life, mood and behavioural disturbances of persons with dementia and reducing distress and burden of caregivers. METHOD: A retrospective pre-test-post-test study without control group was conducted on the first cohort of persons with dementia (n=30) and their caregivers (n=30), who participated in a programme lasting for a maximum of 1 year with 25 1-hour counselling sessions.

Experience-based co-design (EBCD) is a service design strategy that facilitates collaborative work between professional staff and service users toward common goals. There is a lack of published examples of it in relation to family carer engagement within a mental health context, and little research exploring the mechanisms behind successful implementation. The aim of this study was to explore the processes that facilitated EBCD with carer involvement.

Background: Adherence to self-care behaviors improves outcomes of patients with heart failure (HF). Caregivers play an important role in contributing to self-care. Objective: We aimed to explore the relationships among HF knowledge, perceived control, social support, and family caregiver contribution to self-care of HF, based on the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills Model. Methods: Two hundred forty-seven dyads of eligible patients with HF and family caregivers were recruited from a general hospital in China.

With an ageing population, there are increasing numbers of experienced family carers (FCs) who could provide peer support to newer carers in a similar care situation. The aims of this paper are to: (i) use a cross-sectional study design to compare characteristics of volunteers and recipients of a peer support programme for FCs of people with dementia, in terms of demographic background, social networks and psychological well-being; and (ii) use a longitudinal study design to explore the overall impact of the programme on the volunteers in terms of psychological well-being.

Objective Drawing on the Stress Process Model, this study examines cancer caregiving in Albania. We used conditional process analysis to test the relationship between psychological distress and quality of life through social support and to examine whether gender moderates pathways in this mediation model. Methods Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a non-probability sample of 377 caregivers from the public oncology service.

Summary: The policy of personalisation in English adult social care prioritises choice and control by service users over the support they receive. Carers also have rights to assessments and support, but these rights have developed separately, so interdependencies between carers and service users may be overlooked. Moreover, it may be difficult to reconcile these divergent policies in routine practice.

INTRODUCTION: The current work describes the protocol for a meta-integration investigating the positive aspects of providing care to someone living with dementia. We aim to understand the position of positive aspects in the caregiver experience as well as identify how positive aspects are commonly conceptualised, investigated and measured in literature.

Purpose: In this study, we aimed to describe the sociodemographic characteristics of caregivers of patients in a geriatric unit and to clarify the relationship between caregiver burden and specific clinical variables in the patients and the characteristics of the caregivers. Design: Cross-sectional multicenter study. Methods: One hundred twenty-three patients and 123 caregiver dyads, with mean ages of 72.5 ± 7.7 years and 51 ± 14.7 years, respectively, were included.

Objectives: The aim of this article was to identify the best predictors of distress suffered by family carers (FCs) of geriatric patients. Methods: A cross-sectional study of 100 FC-geriatric patient dyads was conducted. The negative impact of care (NIoC) subscale of the COPE index was dichotomized to identify lower stress (score of #15 on the scale) and higher stress (score of ≤16 on the scale) exerted on FCs by the process of providing care.

BACKGROUND: Previous research into improving patient safety has emphasised the importance of responding to and learning from concerns raised by service users and carers. Expertise gained by the experiences of service users and their carers has also been seen as a potential resource to improve patient safety. We know little about the ease of raising concerns within mental health services, and the potential benefits of involving service users and carers in safety interventions.