The Effects and Meaning of a Person-centred and Health-promoting Intervention in Home Care Services

The Effects and Meaning of a Person-centred and Health-promoting Intervention in Home Care Services: Study Protocol of a Non-randomised Controlled Trial

Current home care service are to a large extent task oriented with a limited focus on care recipient's involvement. Furthermore, studies have shown that low care recipients' involvement might decrease older people's quality of life. Person-centred care focusing on involvement has improved the quality of life and the satisfaction with care for older people in health care and nursing homes but there is a lack of knowledge about the effects and meaning of a person-centred interventions in aged care at home. Present study describes the evaluation of a person-centred and health-promoting intervention.

This is a non-randomised controlled trial with a before-after approach. The investigators will include 270 home care recipients >65 years, 270 family members and 65 staff in intervention group and control group respectively. Participants will be recruited from a municipality in northern Sweden. The intervention involves letting the person and family together with contact nurse prioritise care content and make rearrangements to make sure the home care service maximises the potential to satisfy psychosocial, physical, and functional needs and increasing health. Outcome assessment will focus on; a) quality of life (primary outcomes), thriving and satisfaction with care for older people, b) caregiver strain, informal caregiving engagement and satisfaction with care for relatives, c) job satisfaction and stress for care staff. Evaluation will be performed by questionnaires and interviews.

Person-centred home care services have the potential to improve the recurrently reported sub-standard experiences of home care services and the study result will hopefully lead the way in establish a person-centred and health-promoting model in aged care and living conditions for older people.

Inclusion Criteria:

Inclusion criteria for care recipients will be:

• persons 65 years or older
• living at home with granted HCS
• have at least two visits per month, and
• be Swedish speaking

Inclusion for family members:

• be defined by the care recipients as his/her family member, and
• Swedish speaking

Inclusion for staff:

• have an employment for more than 6 month in the HCS district at baseline, be a contact staff and
• Swedish speaking
• Care recipients who apply for HCS in the district during the study period will be offered the intervention but not be included in the evaluation

Exclusion Criteria

• No exclusion criteria