Critical Literature Review: Mental Health Nursing and Dementia Studies

This report presents a critical literature review focusing on dementia within the context of mental health nursing. The study employs the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) checklist to evaluate three selected articles. The articles address key issues such as decision-making processes in dementia care, the global prevalence of dementia, and the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in care homes. The PICO structure is used to analyze the problems and questions addressed in each article. The review assesses the validity, relevance, and results of each study, including the precision of results, the applicability to local populations, and the consideration of important outcomes. The report synthesizes the findings, providing insights into the strengths and limitations of the chosen literature and their implications for mental health nursing practice related to dementia care. The findings are based on systematic searches using databases like CINAHL and Medline. The study explores the effectiveness of interventions and the outcomes for both residents and staff in care settings, offering a comprehensive overview of the current research landscape in dementia care.

Critical Literature Review
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Introduction
Ascertaining the effectiveness of chosen literatures in disseminating information on particular
topic is essential. It avoids the risk of relying on unauthentic sources. This makes it essential to
critically review the chosen sources. For this purpose Critical Appraisal Skills Programme
[CASP] checklists can be effective.
Considering the above discussed aspects, the present assignment would focus dealing with the
topic of mental health nursing in which dementia will be focused upon. In this context, 3 articles
will be chosen which would be analyzed with the help of CASP model.
Problems and questions addressed in the Literature Review
For the purpose of analyzing the problems and questions which are being addressed in the
literature review in the chosen articles, the PICO structure will be used.
Article 1- The DECIDE
Study: Dementia carers
making informed decisions
Article 2- The global
prevalence of dementia: A
systematic review
and meta analysis
Article 3- Systematic
review of the effective
components of
psychosocial
interventions delivered
by care home staff to
people with dementia
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P In this research, the
researcher has focused on the
problem of losing decision
making capacities among
dementia wherein individuals
having dementia, healthcare
professionals and family
carers have been
incorporated in the study
(Lord, 2016).
The article focused on
increasing global prevalence
of dementia wherein 21
Global Burden of Disease
regions has been chosen.
This study focused on
individuals aged 60 or more
than 60 (Prince et al.,
2013)..
The study has focused
analyzing the impact of
interventions on care
services delivered by care
home staff to individuals
with dementia (Rapaport
et al., 2017).
I DECIDE manual Planning, policy-making
and allocation of health and
welfare resources.
Psychosocial interventions
C Comparison of baseline
measures of the individuals
who completed it as
compared to non-
participants.
Comparison between 21
GBD regions and Western
European population
structure has been made in
the study (Prince et al.,
2013).
Comparison has been
made between staff
receiving knowledge of
restraint use, intervention
and dementia as compared
to staffs within the
compared group (Rapaport
et al., 2017).
O The research outcome
established the fact that
DECIDE manual was
effective in minimizing
decisional conflict (Lord,
2016)
The outcome of the research
was the fact that the number
of individuals with dementia
in 2010 globally was 35.6
million which is expected to
rise by 115.4 million by
2050. It also reflected the
fact that a majority of the
population with dementia
were present in middle or
The study came up with
the outcome that
psychosocial interventions
can result in enhanced
residents and staff
outcomes in case of
individuals with dementia
in care homes.
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low income countries
establishing the correlation
between income level and
occurrence of dementia
(Prince et al., 2013).
For the purpose of searching these papers, the researcher researched for the articles with the help
of using certain key words associated with the topic of specialty practice. The search focused on
retrieving studies which are focused on mental health with particular emphasis on dementia. The
keywords which have been used on the part of the researcher are, dementia, decision making,
intervention and care training, prevalence.
This systematic search for the purpose of collecting the articles has been done with the help of
Google search engine. It has also been carried out with the help of bibliographic databases like
CINAHL and Medline (Subirana et al., 2007).
For the purpose of conducting this research, theme of keywords have been developed in which
the first theme is based on the issue of dementia, the second theme was based on impact of the
condition, loss of the ability of decision making and third theme focused on the ways of
managing the condition and associated intervention.
In the process of conducting the search, on the part of the researcher Boolean Operator ‘and’ ‘or’
‘not’ has been used which helped in either broadening or limiting the search result (Holloway &
Galvin, 2016). In the process of searching the articles manual search has also been used which
provided with the scope of reviewing the articles in which the article’s abstract, list of references
and title was evaluated in order to determine if the particular study should be included or not. For
the purpose of collecting the desired articles, certain exclusion and inclusion criteria have been
used for effectively determining of the article is supposed to be included or not.
The inclusion criteria are as follows:
 If the particular study focused on the issue of dementia?
 Does the study include the issues or impact associated with dementia?
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 If the study deals with a particular intervention for further developing certain aspects
associated with the condition?
 The article has been published with in a period of 2007-2018
 The article being published in English language
 The study is a full text study
The exclusion criteria are:
 The articles not focusing on dementia as its focus of mental health condition
 It has not been published which has been published before 2007
 The study not available in full text study
With the help of Medline the first search was conducted. In this first search, 5 articles were
retrieved. These 5 articles to some extent seemed to be in alignment with the chosen theme. In
context to same theme the second search was carried out with the help of CINAHL database
which provided 7 relevant articles (White, 2014). On following the limiting factors a total of 5
articles were chosen.
All the chosen 5 articles were manually reviewed basing on inclusion and exclusion criteria. On
the basis of the review, 3 articles successfully matched the inclusion criteria which finally were
considered for the review.
For the purpose of appraising the chosen articles CASP will be used as the tool (Voss, &
Rehfuess, 2013). It is with the help of using this tool in order to evaluate the articles that would
help in determining the validity, relevance and results of the articles.
Article 1- The DECIDE Study: Dementia carers making informed decisions
Yes Can’t Tell No Comments
1. Did the
review
address a
clearly
focused

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question?
2. Did the
authors look
for the
right type of
papers?

3. Do you
think all the
important,
relevant studies
were included?

4. Did the
review’s
authors do
enough to
assess quality
of
the included
studies?

5. If the results
of the review
have been
combined, was
it
reasonable to
do so?

6. What are the
overall results
of the review?
The study
came up with
outcome of the
fact that
DECIDE
manual was
acceptable and
useful on the
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part of the
carers. The
study further
stated that all
the participants
found the
manual to be
relevant and
useful in the
decision
making
process.
However, the
carers were of
the opinion
that DECIDE
manual failed
in addressing
disagreement
among the
family
members along
with
negotiating
services.
7. How precise
are the results?
The fact that
the result of the
study was
precise in
nature can be
stated on the
basis of the
fact that the
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study clearly
mentioned and
included its
confidence
intervals
wherein in case
of hospital
anxiety CI was
[-251, 305, p=
846],
depression
scores was CI
[- 133, 3.98],
p= 319. This
clearly
specifies the
preciseness of
the result.
8. Can the
results be
applied to
the local
population?

9. Were all
important
outcomes
considered?

10. Are the
benefits worth
the
harms and
costs?

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Article 2- The global prevalence of dementia: A systematic review and meta analysis
Yes Can’t Tell No Comments
1. Did the
review
address a
clearly
focused
question?

2. Did the
authors look
for the
right type of
papers?

3. Do you
think all the
important,
relevant studies
were included?

4. Did the
review’s
authors do
enough to
assess quality
of
the included
studies?

5. If the results
of the review
have been
combined, was
it
reasonable to

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do so?
6. What are the
overall results
of the review?
The research
came up with a
clear outcome
in which it
specifies that
within the age
group of ≥60
years differed
in narrow
band. It was
5%-7% in
majority of the
world regions
having higher
prevalence in
Latin America
that was seen
to have lower
prevalence in
sub-Saharan
African
regions. It
further
provided with
statistics that
as of 2010.
35.6 million
Individuals
were living
with dementia
across the
world which is
expected to
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rise to 115.4
million by
2015. Thus it
clearly
establishes the
fact that the
research
provided with
a clear
outcome.
7. How precise
are the results?
The data
provided in the
study can be
stated to be
precise in
nature. It can
be established
with the help
of the fact that
in case of
studies that
reported
unweighted
prevalence the
researcher
extracted 95%
of confidence
intervals.
8. Can the
results be
applied to
the local

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population?
9. Were all
important
outcomes
considered?

10. Are the
benefits worth
the
harms and
costs?

Article 3- Systematic review of the effective components of psychosocial interventions
delivered by care home staff to people with dementia
Yes Can’t Tell No Comments
1. Did the
review
address a
clearly
focused
question?

2. Did the
authors look
for the
right type of
papers?

3. Do you 
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