Narrative inquiry on case studies of crisis in dementia

This study aims to explore the coping styles that can be inferred from the discourse of dyads with dementia, and how these appear to impact on care management.

This was a case study approach. Participants were recruited from two teams managing crisis in dementia in the UK. The authors conducted multiple qualitative interviews with people with dementia and their family carers over the course of one month. The analysis was first performed through thematic analysis. Data were further analysed through narrative inquiry to create a story line, or play in our case, for our findings.

Five dyads were interviewed and a total of 16 interviews were conducted. Three dyads were husband–wife and two were daughter–mother relationships. The mean age was 67.4 years for carers and 79.8 years for people with dementia. In these cases, the carer assumed responsibility for managing the episode and was more likely to seek formal help if a pre-existing plan was in place. Otherwise, when a crisis arose, dyads preferred to avoid involving professionals.

Psychosocial interventions should aim to identify and replace unhelpful strategies used by dyads to manage crisis episodes.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study using qualitative interviews of dyads to inquire into their experience of mental health crisis.