TY - JOUR

T1 - eHealth and Web-Based Interventions for Informal Carers of People With Dementia in the Community: Umbrella Review

AU - Naunton Morgan, Bethan

AU - Windle, Gill

AU - Sharp, Rebecca

AU - Lamers, Carolien

N1 - This work is part of a PhD studentship “Adaptation of an e-health intervention ‘iSupport’ for carers of people living with rare dementias.” and is linked to the Rare Dementia Support Impact project (The impact of multicomponent support groups for those living with rare dementias, ES/S010467/1) and is funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the National Institute for Health Research.

PY - 2022/7/22

Y1 - 2022/7/22

N2 - Background: The prevalence of dementia is increasing, and there are many associated problems that family members face asinformal carers, including emotional, physical, and financial difficulties. There are benefits for a person with dementia to live at home for as long as possible, and therefore, supporting their informal carers is crucial. The growing interest in supporting carers through internet-based interventions is evidenced by the volume of systematic reviews on this topic. It is now appropriate to systematically examine this body of work and provide an overview of the literature.Objective: This umbrella review aimed to identify the most effective internet-based intervention content and delivery method to support those caring for someone with dementia living in the community.Methods: PsycINFO, Web of Science, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and PubMed were searched for systematicreviews examining the effectiveness of web-based interventions for informal carers of people with dementia. A total of 3 reviewers extracted data and evaluated the quality of the papers. To ascertain the extent to which the systematic reviews reported on the same evidence, the proportion of overlap between their included studies was calculated. Qualitative research findings were extracted and reported.Results: A total of 21 papers were included in the study. The quality of the review papers was mainly rated as low to moderate, and 10% (2/21) of papers were of high quality. The findings suggest that multicomponent interventions were the most effective in supporting carers. These included combinations of cognitive behavioral therapy and relaxation strategies, educational resources, and online support groups. Interventions that were delivered on the web but included sessions with a personal element, such as telephone contact, showed the best results. When comparing the studies reviewed in all the review papers, a moderate overlap was noted. However, when comparing individual reviews with each other, they showed a high overlap of the included studies.Conclusions: Mixed delivery methods and intervention content showed the most effective results in supporting those caringfor people with dementia. However, many papers do not separate the results for differing intervention contents or delivery; this needs to be considered when drawing conclusions. There was an overlap among the studies included in the reviews. This suggests a lack of current research on the effectiveness of web-based interventions for people caring for a person with dementia. There was also a lack of consistency in the outcome measures across all papers. Future studies can involve updating research on the effectiveness of these interventions while distinguishing between different intervention types, thus creating guidelines for the use of standardized measures to enable comparisons of intervention effects and improve the scientific quality of the overall research.

AB - Background: The prevalence of dementia is increasing, and there are many associated problems that family members face asinformal carers, including emotional, physical, and financial difficulties. There are benefits for a person with dementia to live at home for as long as possible, and therefore, supporting their informal carers is crucial. The growing interest in supporting carers through internet-based interventions is evidenced by the volume of systematic reviews on this topic. It is now appropriate to systematically examine this body of work and provide an overview of the literature.Objective: This umbrella review aimed to identify the most effective internet-based intervention content and delivery method to support those caring for someone with dementia living in the community.Methods: PsycINFO, Web of Science, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and PubMed were searched for systematicreviews examining the effectiveness of web-based interventions for informal carers of people with dementia. A total of 3 reviewers extracted data and evaluated the quality of the papers. To ascertain the extent to which the systematic reviews reported on the same evidence, the proportion of overlap between their included studies was calculated. Qualitative research findings were extracted and reported.Results: A total of 21 papers were included in the study. The quality of the review papers was mainly rated as low to moderate, and 10% (2/21) of papers were of high quality. The findings suggest that multicomponent interventions were the most effective in supporting carers. These included combinations of cognitive behavioral therapy and relaxation strategies, educational resources, and online support groups. Interventions that were delivered on the web but included sessions with a personal element, such as telephone contact, showed the best results. When comparing the studies reviewed in all the review papers, a moderate overlap was noted. However, when comparing individual reviews with each other, they showed a high overlap of the included studies.Conclusions: Mixed delivery methods and intervention content showed the most effective results in supporting those caringfor people with dementia. However, many papers do not separate the results for differing intervention contents or delivery; this needs to be considered when drawing conclusions. There was an overlap among the studies included in the reviews. This suggests a lack of current research on the effectiveness of web-based interventions for people caring for a person with dementia. There was also a lack of consistency in the outcome measures across all papers. Future studies can involve updating research on the effectiveness of these interventions while distinguishing between different intervention types, thus creating guidelines for the use of standardized measures to enable comparisons of intervention effects and improve the scientific quality of the overall research.

KW - dementia

KW - Alzheimer Disease

KW - informal

KW - Family

KW - carers

KW - Caregivers

KW - internet technology

KW - interventions

U2 - 10.2196/36727

DO - 10.2196/36727

M3 - Article

VL - 24

JO - Journal of Medical Internet Research

JF - Journal of Medical Internet Research

SN - 1438-8871

IS - 7

M1 - e36727

ER -