Quality of life for older adults
(Participants of the Ageing Well Stakeholder Forum, August 2019)
Ageing Well: social participation and wellbeing tools to enhance the delivery of quality, person-centred community aged care services
This project is supported by a Department of Health Dementia and Aged Care Service Fund grant and ARC Linkage Project LP120200814.
Project Members - Macquarie University
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Project description, aims and method
Description
The provision of community care services is a central way of supporting older adults to remain connected with their communities and prevent social isolation and loneliness.
However, there is rather limited research on how frail older adults receiving community care services participate in community life.
Targeting this area might present the greatest opportunity to improve clients’ quality of life and increase social participation.
Aims
We aim to:
- Evaluate the implementation of social participation and quality of life tools in community aged care assessments.
- Ascertain the levels of social participation and quality of life for a sample of Uniting community aged care clients.
- Measure the association between the delivery of community aged care services, social participation and quality of life.
- Utilise the findings to provide recommendations of potential strategies that could be implemented in the future to improve social participation.
Design and Method
We seek to evaluate the implementation of the following two validated survey tools as part of routine assessments for approximately 1200 community aged care clients to assess social participation and quality of life:
- The Australian Community Participation Questionnaire (ACPQ; Berry, 2007)
- The ICEpop CAPability Index (ICECAP-0)
The survey tools will be implemented in three waves using an iterative process. During the implementation phase interviews with Uniting clients and support staff will be conducted to gauge their views and opinions on the survey tools, and the impact they have had.
Initiatives - Ageing well stakeholder forums
Ageing Well Stakeholder Forum - November 2018
The first stakeholder forum involved community aged care clients and staff, senior management from Uniting, and representatives from the Uniting LGBTI department, Health Consumers NSW, Department of Health, and members of the ACER team. This forum provided a unique opportunity for different stakeholders to come together that had contributed to, influenced by, or would be affected by the Ageing Well project. A brief overview of the Ageing Well project was provided, but the main focus was on the discussions between all stakeholders on relevant topics related to social engagement and community aged care services. Evidence-based, action-oriented and effective, this exciting initiative brings forth multiple voices in aged care to offer a promising way forward for research and evaluation. See our brief video and photos which provides the day’s highlights, showing how well consumers and researchers can work together on important healthcare topics.
Ageing Well Stakeholder Forum - August 2019
This forum brought together community aged care clients and staff, senior management from Uniting, health consumer representatives, Department of Health, and members of the ACER team to continue discussions related to social engagement and community aged care services including integrated care and consumer choice.
Findings
Potential benefits can include:
- Meaningful outcome indicators to assess the effects of community service provision on social participation and quality of life.
- Identify individual or groups of clients who may benefit from more, or a different combination of services, to improve their social participation and quality of life.
- Assess the effects of increasing social participation and quality of life on sentinel health events and use of health services.
Further information
News and media
The Health Advocate - Issue 44, October 2017
Briefing: Where have all my friends gone? Ageing and targeting loneliness and isolation.
Related Links
Integrating aged care services in the community
Related stream of research
Aged Care Evaluation Research (ACER) team
Project Status
Completed.
Centres Related to this Project
Content owner: Australian Institute of Health Innovation Last updated: 26 Apr 2024 1:21pm