Protocol paper for dementia relationships systematic review published
5 April 2016
The protocol for a systematic review to look at how family relationships affect outcomes for people with dementia has been published in BMJ Open.
This study is about family relationships in dementia, specifically the relationship between the person with dementia and their main family carer. We want to find out if the quality of this relationship affects what happens to the person with dementia in the long run.
For example, if there are low levels of closeness or intimacy in the relationship, does that increase the risk that the person with dementia will be admitted to a nursing home at some point in their illness? Is there a relationship between the attachment style of the person with dementia and challenging behaviour? These are just two examples of how psychological and social factors in the relationship could affect outcomes for the person with dementia.
This study is a systematic review, so we are collecting together and evaluating all of the evidence so far on this topic. In this paper, we describe the background to this research and our plan for the review.