Seeking the balance between caregiving in dementia, family and employment: study protocol for a mixed methods study in Northern Germany

INTRODUCTION: The debate on reconciliation between childcare and working has to be expanded to caregiving for the elderly, since the importance of informal caregiving will increase in the future due to populations' ageing and women's increasing labour force participation. Informal caregivers who are caring for the rising number of persons with dementia (PwD) are often female and subjected to high caregiving requirements. These are added to further demands emerging from their family and work life. How affected caregivers seek to balance those requirements depends on, inter alia, their own characteristics and the informal caregiving network to whom they relate. Both aspects were not yet considered in previous studies. This mixed methods study thus aims to explore the reconciliation between caregiving in dementia, family and employment by including different members of caregiving networks of home-dwelling PwD and by considering their personal characteristics.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS: By purposive sampling, we include at least five caregiving networks of home-dwelling PwD; each of them consisting of at least three informal caregivers living in Northern Germany. Narrative interviews of participants will be recorded, transcribed verbatim and interpreted according to the Documentary Method (QUAL). By completing standardised questionnaires, participants will provide sociodemographic and psychographic data concerning themselves and the networks from whom they arise (quan). This supplemental, descriptive information will give further background to the themes and types emerging from the interviews. Hence, the quan-data enrich the QUAL-data by exploring the narratives of participants in the light of their personal and network-related characteristics.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the German Society of Nursing Sciences. Study results will be disseminated through conference presentations and publications in peer-reviewed journals.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: DRKS00012929.