Interventions facilitating the involvement of relatives of patients with acquired brain injury or malignant brain tumour: A scoping review.

The review did not assess the quality of the 46 included studies, so it maps what was done rather than how trustworthy the results are. Most studies were in stroke (35 studies), so findings may not transfer to relatives of patients with malignant brain tumour or other acquired brain injuries. Interventions differed widely in setting, duration, components and delivery mode, so they cannot be compared directly. No included study measured the level of relatives' involvement, so the review cannot say how much involvement was actually delivered. Many studies did not report essential characteristics, and the authors did not contact study authors for missing data. The review did not distinguish validated from unvalidated outcome measurements. The search started in 2010 and did not comprehensively search grey literature, so older or unpublished work may be missing. Scoping review methodology does not allow clinical recommendations.

The review was funded by Danish Health Confederation and Danish Regions (grant 2657), and the paper states the funding did not influence the review process. One author (SN) is first author of an included study but was not involved in study inclusion or data extraction for that study. The authors declared no additional conflicts.

Do not read this as evidence that nurse-led education or physical activity with relatives improves caregiver burden or quality of life. This scoping review mapped 46 heterogeneous studies, did not assess study quality or estimate effects, and no study measured the level of relatives' involvement.