Abstract
Aim: Informal caregivers have an important role in bridging the gap between the assistance care recipients need and what can be provided by the health care systems across Europe. The burden of the caregiving role places a significant threat to caregiver health, and the vast majority of caregiver's report stress and emotional strain, depression, and increased rates of chronic diseases. In line with this, strengthening the caregiver's mental health is one of the main goals for optimal caregiving. Caregivers already struggle with the demand of their role while coping with health problems, social, family, and work obligations. The solution for the caregiver's mental health needs to be accessible, low cost, and time-effective. This scoping review investigates digital mental health tools available as a mean of supporting the mental health of caregivers.Method: Databases searched include Summon search box, the Cochrane Library, and PubMed. Three groups of keywords were combined: relating to digital mental health interventions for caregivers, digital mental health interventions and stress in elderly care, and digital mental health interventions and burden in elderly care.Results: Caregivers reported that digital mental health tools have an overall positive role in their health. Coping skills, emotion regulation, skill building, and education are found to be important aspects of digital mental health tools. There was a noted lack of digital mental health apps available specifically for the caregiver of older adults. Furthermore, the digital mental health tools, divided into three categories in this review, focused either on building skills or educating caregivers and assisting with the duties rather than the mental health of the caregiver itself. As repeatedly suggested in the reviewed studies, digital mental health interventions overall contribute to reducing the caregiver burden with a limitation of addressing one aspect of caregiver needs –i.e., specific coping skills or education regarding illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease and Dementia. The lack of all-encompassing, data and theory-driven digital mental health tools for addressing and supporting the caregiver's mental health is evident.
Highlights
The rapid aging of the European population is one of the critical challenges the European social systems are facing today
The purpose of this review is to investigate and thematically synthesize the existing literature, in order to understand the state of the art digital mental health tools for managing burden, stress, and overall adverse mental health outcomes for the informal caregivers
20 articles met the inclusion criteria, four were excluded during the data extraction due to the insufficient description of the study participants resulting in the unclear understanding if the study focused on the caregiver or digital mental health tool that can be used by the caregiver, vague description of procedure or limited report of the results
Summary
The rapid aging of the European population is one of the critical challenges the European social systems are facing today. Current predictions indicate that the number of individuals above 80 years of age will rise from 4.9% in 2016 to 13% in 2070 [1]. The predicted rise puts social and health systems in Europe to a severe test and challenges the fiscal sustainability of long-term care while shedding the light on the current demographic changes. The type of help provided by the informal caregiver varies based on the age, illness, and need of the care recipient and can include help with the household chores, running errands, providing transportation to the doctor, social and emotional support, distributing the medication, and providing physical care such as bathing and feeding [3, 4]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
