Objective:

Explore the effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions to improve the quality of life of family caregivers of Alzheimer's patients.

Methods:

We conducted a systematic review, in pairs, in the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, PsycINFO, WOS, Cochrane Library, IME, Cuiden Plus and Dialnet. Inclusion criteria were: 1. Studies published between 2010-2015. 2. Language: English, Portuguese and Spanish. 3. Randomized controlled clinical trials. 4. Score greater than or equal to 3 on the Jadad scale.

Results:

13 studies were included. Four performed a psychosocial intervention with family caregivers, three psychotherapeutic, two psychoeducational, two multicomponent, one educational and another with mutual support groups. The tools to assess quality of life: three studies used the Health Status Questionnaire (HSQ), three EuroQol-5D (two only used the EVA), two health questionnaire SF-36, two WHOQOL-BREF, two Quality of Life SF-12 and one Perceived Quality of Life Scale (PQoL). Regarding the effectiveness of non-pharmacological interventions, five studies obtained favorable results in the quality of life after psychotherapeutic interventions and community-type multicomponent training.

Conclusion:

The diversity of non-pharmacological interventions used and contents, differences in the number of sessions and hours, and variability of valuation tools used to measure quality of life of family caregivers, leads us to reflect on the appropriateness to standardize criteria, for the sake to improve clinical practice.

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