Understanding the impact of caring for a family member with dementia
Dr Jan Oyebode, Professor of Dementia Care, University of Bradford, along with researchers from other UK universities, has undertaken a study to understand of how providing care for a relative with dementia impacts on carers. The team asked people how caring affected their ability to fulfil fundamental human needs.
They conducted 42 semi-structured interviews, selecting diverse carers (including people from different ethnicities, rural vs urban, young carers, etc.) and analysed the themes arising. This 'needs-led' approach has not been used before and they believe it could give a fresh and useful understanding of the dementia carer perspective.
Since this first step, the team has gone on to build a set of scales (called SIDECAR) that measure dementia carers’ quality of life. Further steps are to look at how the framework could be used as a starting point for the provision of effective carer support.
Find out more
The Centre for Applied Dementia Studies
SIDECAR is free to use on registration with the University of Leeds. Contact Jan Oyebode for more details.