Much of the carer literature has focused on depression and burden as primary outcomes and anxiety appear somewhat neglected. Providing evidence on the prevalence of carer anxiety is critical as it can enhance awareness among professionals, which in turn can lead to improved access to efficacious treatments. This meta-analysis updated the previous review conducted in 2007 to estimate the up-to-date prevalence of anxiety in informal carers for people with dementia. Literature searches were conducted in databases of published and unpublished literature. Events and sample size data were pooled using a random effects model to obtain an overall prevalence percentage. A total of 10 studies were included, resulting in a pooled estimate of anxiety prevalence at 32.1% (95% confidence interval: 20.6%-46.2%, P = .01). Significant heterogeneity was found, which was not reduced following sensitivity analysis. This study suggests anxiety is a prevalent difficulty experienced by dementia carers. Additional research recommendations and clinical implications are discussed.

中文翻译：

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非正式痴呆症护理者的焦虑：患病率的荟萃分析。

许多护理人员的文献都集中在抑郁和负担上，因为主要结果和焦虑似乎被忽略了。提供有关护理焦虑症患病率的证据至关重要，因为它可以提高专业人员的意识，进而可以改善获得有效治疗的机会。这项荟萃分析更新了之前于2007年进行的评估，以评估痴呆症患者非正式护理人员的最新焦虑状况。在已出版和未出版文献的数据库中进行文献检索。使用随机效应模型汇总事件和样本量数据，以获得总体患病率。总共包括10项研究，导致焦虑患病率的综合估计为32.1％（95％置信区间：20.6％-46.2％，P = 0.01）。发现重大异质性，敏感性分析后并未降低。这项研究表明焦虑症是痴呆症护理者普遍遇到的困难。讨论了其他研究建议和临床意义。