Background: Projections revealed that the age group of 60+ years will increase to 1.4 billion people worldwide by 2030. Germany is affected by the demographic change with an increase in people suffering from dementia and a substantial proportion will be cared for by informal caregivers. Quality of life (QOL) is of utmost importance for the stability of domestic care arrangements.
Objectives: This review aimed at collecting and analyzing articles on the association between burden of care and QOL in older informal caregivers of people with dementia.
Material and methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in the databases Web of Science and PubMed. German and English papers were considered.
Results: Caregiver burden, health-related characteristics of the informal caregiver, dementia-related characteristics, sociodemographics and contextual factors were significantly negatively associated with informal caregivers' QOL. Support arrangements in order to relieve caregivers were rarely utilized.
Conclusion: Despite different methods of analysis and instruments used, consistent results regarding the association between caregiver burden and QOL in older informal caregivers were found. The existence of a care situation already negatively influenced the caregivers' QOL. Especially older informal caregivers require special support.
Keywords: Demographic change; Relatives; Relief; Review; Support interventions.