JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Dementia is increasing in prevalence and there are many associated problems that family members as informal carers face, 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 in the volume of systematic reviews on the 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 systematic reviews examining the effectiveness of online interventions for informal carers of people with dementia. Three reviewers extracted data and evaluated the quality of the papers. To ascertain the extent to which the systematic reviews were reporting on the same evidence, the proportion of overlap between their included studies was calculated. Qualitative research findings were extracted and reported.

Results:

Twenty-one papers were included in the synthesis. The quality of the review papers was mainly rated as low to moderate, two were of a high quality. Findings suggested that multi-component interventions were the most effective in supporting carers. These included combinations of CBT and relaxation strategies, educational resources, and online support groups. Interventions that were delivered online 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 between the included studies.

Conclusions:

Mixed delivery methods and intervention content show the most effective results in supporting those caring for someone with dementia. However, many papers do not separate the results for the differing intervention contents or delivery, this needs to be considered when drawing conclusions. There was an overlap between the studies included in the reviews. This suggests a lack of current research into the effectiveness of online interventions for people caring for a person with dementia. There was also a lack of consistency in outcome measures across all papers. Future studies could involve updating research into the effectiveness of these interventions while distinguishing between different types, creating guidance for the use of standardised measures to enable comparisons of intervention effects and improve the scientific quality of the overall research. Clinical Trial: PROSPERO registration number: CRD42021241559