Table 2.

Papers reporting family involvement (FI) interventions or impact of FI on resident BPSD with a qualitative design.

Authors	Method, approach and setting	N	Key domain and time points (single unless stated)	Key results	Quality rating and comments
Aveyard & Davies (2006) (UK) RQ: 1	Interviews, focus group Action group intervention (senses framework) 1 care home	Family 7 Staff 18	Collaborative working between residents, relatives, staff and researchers	Families and staff created a shared understanding, learned to value each other, became a powerful voice for change and moved forward	MMAT: **** Pos: Longitudinal design, member checks, researcher influence, limitation reporting Neg: Small sample, atypical single site
Brannelly et al. (2019) (New Zealand) RQ: 1 and 2	Focus group interviews Thematic analysis 1 care home	Family 11 Staff 9	Impact of a new inclusive care model, live an ordinary life on care support workers and family where encouraging family contact was core aim	Families found the unit calmer, more welcoming, with improved staff–family communication. Staff reported increased confidence and positive changes in wellbeing for residents. FI resulted in improved, tailored activities for residents	MMAT: *** Pos: Longitudinal design, use of audio recording, multiple authors involved in levels of analysis and theme validation Neg: Small sample size, 1 location, no unit details, no result verification with participants, researcher influence unclear
Mariani et al. (2017) (Italy & Netherlands) RQ: 1 and 2	Focus group interviews Descriptive with content analysis 2 care homes (IT 1; NL 1)	Staff 19	Barriers, facilitators and influencing factors to the implementation of a shared decision making (SDM) framework for care planning of which involving family was a central aim	Training using role play found to be useful for staff learning how to involve residents and family caregivers in optimal way. Improvements found in cooperation with families and care records. Multidisciplinary working and communication skills key to enabling FI as were family compliance factors; closeness, usual involvement with care tasks, family perceptions about need for SDM.	MMAT: **** Pos: Interview guide, multi-country, inter-rater agreement and consensus, group difference considered, well reported analysis results and participant quotes Neg: Small sample size, difference in dementia severity by location, 1 setting per location, different languages used
Stirling et al. (2014) (Australia) RQ: 1	Interviews, focus and action groups Dementia and dying: Discussion tool 4 care homes	Family 11	Facilitation of staff–family communication about palliative care	Families and staff reported the tool promoted a different type of communication where families were engaged, confidence in talking about dementia trajectory and palliative care was improved and family-staff relationships were enhanced	MMAT: *** Pos: Description of tool development, stakeholder review Neg: Small sample, no result verification, researcher influence unclear
Walmsley & McCormack (2017) (Australia) RQ: 2	Video recorded observations Phenomenological with thematic analysis 4 care homes	Family 14 Resident 5	Relational social engagement (RSE) and retained awareness in people with severe dementia during interactions with family Two separate time points at families’ convenience	Family interactions during visits resulted in retained awareness beyond assessed levels in those with severe dementia. RSE evident whether interactions were positive or negative	MMAT: *** Pos: Independent audit, separate analysis, theory links, researcher stance and bias considered Neg: Subjectivity of interpretation; speech of residents was limited, small sample size, care home details missing from results

Note: RQ = Research Question.