Resilience in family caregiving for people with dementia: A systematic review

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this review is to critically examine, evaluate, and synthesize the literature on resilience in family caregiving for people with dementia.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines to identify articles which examined resilience and related concepts in family caregiving for people with dementia. The review was based on a systematic search of scholarly databases, to yield peer-reviewed articles and grey literature, published between 2006 and 2016. Two independent reviewers prescreened the search results and conducted formal assessments and quality appraisals of the retrieved articles.

Results: A total of 13 863 articles were identified by the systematic search, and 52 articles were included in the review. Based on a critical narrative synthesis of the literature, the study proposes a model of resilience for family carers of people with dementia, which incorporates the context of caring, social and cultural characteristics, and psychological dimensions of caring.

Conclusions: The results indicate that there is no single approach to enhancing resilience among family carers of people with dementia. Resilience is a multifaceted response to the caregiving role, and is influenced by a multitude of interrelated factors. However, the factors and resources outlined have been addressed, with limited success in some cases, by psychosocial interventions in the field. While the work conducted to date to develop resilience-enhancing interventions has been marked with some success, the next wave of carer research could usefully examine ecological perspectives on carer outcomes, including carer resilience.

Keywords: dementia; family carers; resilience; systematic review.