Balancing the struggle to live with dementia: a systematic meta-synthesis of coping
Björklöf, Guro Hanevold; Helvik, Anne-Sofie; Ibsen, Tanja Louise; Telenius, Elisabeth Wiken; Grov, Ellen Karine; Eriksen, Siren
Journal article, Peer reviewed
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https://hdl.handle.net/10642/8007Utgivelsesdato
2019-10-07Metadata
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Björklöf GH, Helvik A-S, Ibsen T, Telenius EW, Grov EK, Eriksen SE. Balancing the struggle to live with dementia: a systematic meta-synthesis of coping. BMC Geriatrics. 2019;19 https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1306-9Sammendrag
BACKGROUND: People with dementia describe experiences of loss that
threaten their autonomy and ability to contribute to society. They often
have difficulties with orientation, loss of roll function, and fear about
the future, and need help from others. An increasing body of literature
also focuses on how people with dementia search for meaning and
maintaining of quality to life, and how they find strategies to live with
dementia. A review of the scientific literature on coping and dementia is
warranted and can help to advice and inform healthcare personnel and
decision makers on how they can support and plan for appropriate
healthcare services for people with dementia. The aim of this systematic
meta-synthesis was therefore to interpret and synthesize knowledge
regarding people with dementia's experience of coping.
METHODS: We conducted a systematic, computerised search of Medline,
Embase, Cinahl Complete, PsycINFO and Age Line combining MeSH terms and
text words for different types of dementia with different descriptions of
experience. Studies comprised 1) a sample of people with dementia, 2) a
qualitative interview as a research method and 3) a description of
experiences of coping were included. The search resulted in 7129 articles,
of which 163 were read in full text, 80 were excluded due to the exclusion
criteria or low quality according. The analysis was conducted in line with
qualitative content analyses.
RESULTS: This interpretative qualitative meta-synthesis included 74
articles of good quality encompassing interviews with 955 persons with
dementia. The material revealed two main resources of coping: (1) Humour
and (2) Practical and emotional support, and four overall strategies in
which people with dementia cope with the challenges they experience: (1)
Keep going and holding on to life as usual; (2) Adapting and adjusting to
the demands from the situation; (3) Accepting the situation; and (4)
Avoiding the situation A comprehensive understanding of the categories led
to the latent theme: Balancing the struggle of living with dementia.
CONCLUSION: This meta-synthesis indicates that people with dementia cope
in different ways and using several parallel strategies. This insight is
essential in dementia care to facilitate a supportive environment
Utgiver
BMC (part of Springer Nature)Serie
BMC Geriatrics;19, Article number: 295 (2019)Tidsskrift
BMC Geriatrics
Med mindre annet er angitt, så er denne innførselen lisensiert som © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.