Involvement, worries and loneliness of family caregivers of people with dementia during the COVID-19 visitor ban in long-term care facilities.
Marleen Prins, Bernadette Willemse, Claudia van der Velden and 2 others
PMID 34678687WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers who visited at least weekly worried more during the ban, but daily visitors with weekly or more contact worried less than low visitors with low contact.
Loneliness did not follow visits; resilience was linked to less loneliness only with both social and task-related activities.
Key findings
01Caregivers who visited at least weekly before the ban worried more during it than caregivers who visited less than weekly.
02Caregivers who visited daily before the ban and had weekly or more contact during it worried less than caregivers who visited less than weekly before and had less than weekly contact during.
03No direct visiting difference was found for loneliness, but more resilient caregivers who had done both social and task-related activities before the ban felt less lonely during it.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional and based on self-report, so it shows associations but cannot prove that visiting, contact, or resilience caused worry or loneliness. The worry model accounted for 10.3% of the worry outcome, and the loneliness model accounted for 9.0% of the loneliness outcome, so many other factors were not measured. Responses were anonymous, there was no response rate, and caregivers could not be linked to specific care organizations, so it is unclear how participation was distributed. Visiting before the ban and contact during the ban were measured differently, and the study did not record the type or duration of contact. Worry was measured with items developed by the research consortium, and resilience used only two items, so the scales may not capture all relevant experiences.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the lower worry among daily visitors with weekly or more contact as proof that arranging calls reduces worry. This was a cross-sectional survey of associations, not a tested intervention, and the worry model accounted for 10.3% of the worry outcome.