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Exploring the role of a facilitator in supporting family carers when embedding the iSupport for Dementia programme in care services: A qualitative study

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posted on 2023-12-01, 04:26 authored by Y Yu, SC Hunter, L Xiao, Claudia Meyer, M Chapman, KP Tan, L Chen, S Mckechnie, J Ratcliffe, S Ullah, A Kitson, AQ Andrade, C Whitehead
Aims: To explore stakeholders' perceptions of a facilitator's role in supporting carers when embedding iSupport for Dementia psychoeducation program, in care services. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study design was applied. Data were collected from workshops and interviews with carers of people living with dementia (PLWD)and with health and social care professionals from two tertiary hospitals and two community aged care organisations across three Australian states between October 2021 and March 2022. A thematic analysis was used to analyse data. The COREQ guideline was followed to report our findings. Results: A total of 30 family carers and 45 health and social care professionals participated in the study. Three main themes and seven subthemes were identified from the data. We described the main themes as (1) the facilitator's role at the time of dementia diagnosis, (2) the facilitator's role throughout the everyday dementia care journey and (3) the facilitator's role during transition moments. Conclusions: Caring for family members with dementia is demanding and stressful for carers. Embedding a facilitator-enabled iSupport for Dementia program in hospital and community aged care settings has the potential to mitigate sources of stress associated with care recipient factors, carer factors and care service factors, and improve the health and well-being of carers and those for whom they care. Relevance to Clinical Practice: Our findings will inform the establishment of iSupport facilitators appointed by dementia care providers in hospital and community care settings and help determine their roles and responsibilities in delivering the iSupport program. Our findings relate to nurse-led and coordinated dementia care in hospital and community aged care settings. Patient or Public Contribution: This study was co-designed with stakeholders from two aged care organisations and two tertiary hospitals. The study participants were staff employed by these organisations and carers of PLWD who were service users.

Funding

Medical research future fund; National Health and Medical Research Council; The dementia centre for research collaborationThis study is funded by the Australian Government via 2020 NHMRC/Medical Research Future Fund and NHMRC/The Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration (DCRC) World-Class Research Project Grants.

History

Publication Date

2023-10-01

Journal

Journal of Clinical Nursing

Volume

32

Issue

19-20

Pagination

14p. (p. 7358-7371)

Publisher

Wiley

ISSN

0962-1067

Rights Statement

© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Clinical Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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