School of Health Sciences, 6106University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom.
J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol. 2021 Sep;34(5):482-500. doi: 10.1177/0891988720924713. Epub 2020 May 12.
This meta-analysis aimed to (1) quantitatively synthesize evidence of factors related to the quality of life (QoL) of family carers of people with dementia and (2) explore moderating factors that may influence the strength of the relationship between such potential predictive factors and carer QoL.
Studies that investigated correlations between patient/carer factors and QoL in unpaid family carers of people with dementia and were published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, or Japanese were included.
Thirty-three studies were identified. The pooled correlations with carer QoL (effect size) were significantly large for depression (-0.58), significantly moderate for subjective burden (-0.47), and significantly small for people with dementia's neuropsychiatric symptoms (-0.24). These results indicated to be robust in the context of publication bias. The results of subgroup analyses demonstrated the social and economic development status of the country where study participants resided did not moderate these effects.
Carer depression, subjective burden, and people with dementia's neuropsychiatric symptoms may play a critical role in maintaining QoL of family carers regardless of the social and economic circumstances.
本荟萃分析旨在：(1) 定量综合与痴呆患者家属生活质量（QoL）相关的因素的证据；(2) 探索可能影响这些潜在预测因素与照顾者 QoL 之间关系强度的调节因素。
纳入了以未获得报酬的痴呆患者家属为研究对象，以调查患者/照顾者因素与 QoL 之间相关性，并发表于英文、西班牙语、葡萄牙语或日语的研究。
确定了 33 项研究。与照顾者 QoL 的合并相关性（效应大小）在抑郁（-0.58）方面显著较大，在主观负担（-0.47）方面显著中等，在痴呆患者的神经精神症状（-0.24）方面显著较小。这些结果表明在出版偏倚的情况下具有稳健性。亚组分析的结果表明，研究参与者所在国家/地区的社会和经济发展状况并未调节这些影响。
无论社会经济环境如何，照顾者的抑郁、主观负担和痴呆患者的神经精神症状可能在维持家庭照顾者的 QoL 方面起着关键作用。
