title: Quantifying the unmet needs of caregivers of people with dementia: a critical review of the quality of measures.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The array of demanding tasks carried out by caregivers of people with dementia have significant negative impacts on their physical, mental and social well-being. Needs assessment allows individuals to indicate the extent to which their needs across different areas have or have not been met, allowing for estimations of the prevalence of needs and the extent to which help is required. This approach is extremely valuable in a clinical context, as it enables identification of the areas with which caregivers report a particular desire for help and allows targeting of support and resources to those who identify high levels of unmet needs. This systematic review aimed to critically examine the psychometric properties of measures that assess unmet needs of caregivers of people with dementia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Medline, Embase, PsycINFO and Cochrane electronic databases were searched between January 1990 and August 2015 for English-language publications describing the development or validation of measures assessing the unmet needs of adult caregivers of people with dementia. The psychometric properties of included measures were assessed against standard criteria for psychometric quality.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four measures met the inclusion criteria. Only half of the indices of psychometric quality were tested across measures. Three measures had adequate internal consistency reliability, of which one also showed adequate test-retest reliability. Two measures reported adequate construct validity, while criterion validity was not assessed for any measure.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is a clear need to develop a psychometrically rigorous instrument to identify the unmet needs of caregivers of people with dementia. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour, School of Medicine and Public Health and Hunter Medical Research Institute, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Elise
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7938-8401
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mansfield
authors.affiliation: Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour, School of Medicine and Public Health and Hunter Medical Research Institute, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Allison W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Boyes
authors.affiliation: Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour, School of Medicine and Public Health and Hunter Medical Research Institute, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.affiliation: Priority Research Centre for Health Behaviour, School of Medicine and Public Health and Hunter Medical Research Institute, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Rob
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sanson-Fisher
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology; D003704:Dementia / Q000451:nursing; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D011594:Psychometrics; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: caregiver; caregiver stress; dementia; measures