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Caregivers are individuals who have a significant personal relationship with and provide a broad range of unpaid assistance to an older person or an adult with a chronic or disabling condition outside of a professional or formal framework. This review will examine the current evidence on the needs of caregivers, identify dimensions to be considered in VCoP design and suggest further directions of research. The investigation is an integrative review that builds a bridge between different areas of work. The outcome is eleven dimensions for the design of successful VCoPs for caregivers: Network Structure, Technology, Moderator, Scale, Alignment, Community Design, Sense of Trust, Knowledge Sharing, Sustainability, Ethics and Evaluation. In addition, we propose a Tree Metaphor to present our research results. Well-designed interventions based on VCoP principles have the potential of addressing caregivers\u2019 needs.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1460458220950883","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,9,19]],"date-time":"2020-09-19T08:08:12Z","timestamp":1600502892000},"page":"2976-2991","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["Designing virtual communities of practice for informal caregivers of Alzheimer\u2019s patients: An integrative review"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"26","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8079-1433","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Montse","family":"Romero-Mas","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia, Spain"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Beni","family":"G\u00f3mez-Z\u00fa\u00f1iga","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Universitat Oberta de 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