Time use by family caregivers of elderly with dementia: an integrative review

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective: To describe the development of measures used between 1993 and 2016 to evaluate time use by family caregivers of elderly with dementia and to find out the patterns of time use identified in the literature. Method: An integrative review of articles was performed, indexed by the following terms: time use management, family caregiver and elderly. Results: A total of 17 articles were found, of which seven were methodological. Among these seven articles, five were psychometric. The most frequently used measures were self-reporting (matrices, questionnaires and inventories), validated through objective measures of occurrence and duration. Longitudinal, prospective, clinical and correlational studies showed that care time covaries with the receptors’ dependence and that the caregivers’ subjective well-being is more affected by the time restriction to free choice activities than the burden resulting from obligatory activities. Final considerations: Valid self-reporting measures are widely used nowadays and they are considered to be effective to assess the objective and subjective costs of health care for dementia.