Dementia caregiving involves rapidly changing and complex responsibilities, creating an urgent need for clear guidance, timely support, and appropriate psychosocial care. However, existing digital tools for dementia caregivers often lack real-time assistance and emotional support, partly because caregivers have limited capacity to participate in design validation. This study used a user-centered, concurrent mixed-methods design to investigate caregivers’ actual needs and expectations for digital support via quantitative questionnaires and qualitative semi-structure interviews.
Quantitative results showed significant correlations among psychosocial variables. Specifically, higher depressive symptoms (GDS-15) were strongly associated with higher loneliness (UCLA), poorer psychological and social relationship (WHOQOL-BREF), increased caregiver burden (ZBI-9), and poorer sleep quality (PSQI). Notably, higher caregiver burden was strongly associated with poorer psychological quality of life, highlighting the importance of burden alleviation for promoting mental health. Qualitative thematic analysis revealed core needs, including difficulties navigating complex government resources, lack of time for information search due to fragmented schedules, and challenges responding to unexpected symptoms without timely guidance. Caregivers also emphasized emotional burdens like loneliness. During interviews, male caregivers were less likely to explicitly express emotional needs, despite questionnaire scores indicating psychosocial strain.
These findings highlight essential functional and emotional requirements for future digital support platforms and reinforce the importance of incorporating caregiver experiences into early-stage design to ensure usability and real-world relevance.

Authors:
Yi-Jie Wu, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Chen-Wei Chang, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Yi-Jie Wu, master’s student at National Taiwan Normal University, is interested in clinical research and caregiver well-being. She is currently studying mindfulness-based interventions for dementia caregivers.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

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