Dementia specific care in nursing homes - development of a typology of care units

• Applicant: Professorin Rebecca Palm, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 430919791

Many nursing homes have implemented special care units for people with dementia in order to provide them with better care. There is currently a lack of evidence on the question of whether dementia special care units actually achieve this goal. Since dementia special care units exhibit a strong context-related heterogeneity with regard to their structure and conception, conflicting research results on their resident-related benefits have been available to date. In order for scientific evaluations of dementia special care units to produce more conclusive results, future studies have to take into account the contextual conditions of a nursing home and their influence on the care provided.The present research project is grounded in the organisational health-services research. First, it examines if different types of care units can be identified on the basis of existing relationships between context characteristics. Second, it will be explored if the identified care unit types differ with respect to the care provided. The aim of the proposed pilot study is 1. to develop an empirically supported typology of care units by identifying and describing clusters of comparable care units in nursing homes in Germany; 2. to investigate which care unit clusters implemented evidence-based non-pharmacological interventions for the management of dementia-specific symptoms more often than others.The aims are being achieved by means of a national survey of nursing homes. The survey collects data on four context levels: residents, professionals, organisation and system. Furthermore, data are collected on the implementation of non-pharmacological interventions for the management of dementia-specific symptoms. The data are collected for each nursing home for one care unit; a total sample of n=160 care units is targeted. Sampling is carried out according to randomized stratification taking into account influencing factors (federal state, ownership). The data is collected by means of an online telephone interview with employees in management positions at the participating institution. Multiple correspondence analysis is used to develop the typology. The results of the pilot study permit the statement which contextual conditions are associated with each other and are considered as characteristic for a certain care unit type. They allow developing a testable hypothesis that certain care unit types are more likely to implement the investigated interventions than others. The aim of a follow-up evaluation study is to test the developed hypothesis and to compare the identified care unit types with respect to care outcomes.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants