TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring the Needs of Spousal, Adult Child, and Adult Sibling Informal Caregivers
T2 - A Mixed-Method Systematic Review
AU - Dang, Srishti
AU - Looijmans, Anne
AU - Ferraris, Giulia
AU - Lamura, Giovanni
AU - Hagedoorn, Mariët
N1 - Funding Information:
This systematic review is part of a wider project “ENTWINE informal care” investigating a broad spectrum of challenges in informal caregiving and issues concerning the development of innovative psychology-based and technology-based interventions. ENTWINE is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovation Training Network (ITN), funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020. We would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Fund. The authors also acknowledge the UMCG librarian Truus van Ittersum, who assisted SD with creating the search string and undertaking the search in the electronic database for the relevant articles.
Funding Information:
This study was a part of ENTWINE informal care project. ENTWINE receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 814072.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Dang, Looijmans, Ferraris, Lamura and Hagedoorn.
PY - 2022/3/25
Y1 - 2022/3/25
N2 - Informal caregivers (ICGs) provide care to their family or friends in case of an illness, disability, or frailty. The caregiving situation of informal caregivers may vary based on the relationship they have with the care recipient (CR), e.g., being a spouse or being an adult child. It might be that these different ICGs also have different needs. This study aims to explore and compare the needs of different groups of ICGs based on the relationship they have with their CR. We conducted a systematic review, performing a search in the databases PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. We included studies with qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method study designs. We analyzed the data using the thematic analysis method. We included 22 articles (18 qualitative; 4 quantitative). The included articles reported the needs of ICGs taking care of a spouse (spousal ICGs), parent (adult child ICG), or sibling aged 18 years or above (adult sibling ICGs). We did not include other relationships due to the limited number of articles on these relationships. The most prominent needs reported by the spousal, adult child, and adult sibling ICGs were the need for information and need for support. The three groups differed in their needs as well. Adult child and adult sibling ICGs indicated a need to be acknowledged by the people around them for their role of carer, while they also needed to be seen as an individual having their own personal needs. Moreover, spousal ICGs indicated a unique need of redefining their role and relationship with their CR. Overall, the findings indicate that along with experiencing common needs, the investigated groups have unique needs as well. Knowing the needs of different groups of ICGs can help develop tailored solutions to improve the quality of life of the ICGs and their CR. Systematic Review Registration: [www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/], identifier [CRD42020188560].
AB - Informal caregivers (ICGs) provide care to their family or friends in case of an illness, disability, or frailty. The caregiving situation of informal caregivers may vary based on the relationship they have with the care recipient (CR), e.g., being a spouse or being an adult child. It might be that these different ICGs also have different needs. This study aims to explore and compare the needs of different groups of ICGs based on the relationship they have with their CR. We conducted a systematic review, performing a search in the databases PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. We included studies with qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method study designs. We analyzed the data using the thematic analysis method. We included 22 articles (18 qualitative; 4 quantitative). The included articles reported the needs of ICGs taking care of a spouse (spousal ICGs), parent (adult child ICG), or sibling aged 18 years or above (adult sibling ICGs). We did not include other relationships due to the limited number of articles on these relationships. The most prominent needs reported by the spousal, adult child, and adult sibling ICGs were the need for information and need for support. The three groups differed in their needs as well. Adult child and adult sibling ICGs indicated a need to be acknowledged by the people around them for their role of carer, while they also needed to be seen as an individual having their own personal needs. Moreover, spousal ICGs indicated a unique need of redefining their role and relationship with their CR. Overall, the findings indicate that along with experiencing common needs, the investigated groups have unique needs as well. Knowing the needs of different groups of ICGs can help develop tailored solutions to improve the quality of life of the ICGs and their CR. Systematic Review Registration: [www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/], identifier [CRD42020188560].
KW - care recipient
KW - informal caregiver
KW - needs
KW - relationships
KW - systematic review
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.832974
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.832974
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85128403533
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 13
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
M1 - 832974
ER -