An eLearning Optimized Person Centred Intervention to Improve Staff Attitudes and Quality of Care for People With Dementia Living in Care Homes

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funded Well-being and Health for People with Dementia (WHELD) programme, An Optimized Person Centred Intervention to Improve Quality of Life for People with Dementia Living in Care Homes. This optimized intervention is based on a factorial study and qualitative evaluation, to combine: training on person-centred care, promoting person-centred activities and interactions, and providing care home staff and general practitioners with updated knowledge regarding optimal use of psychotropic medications for persons with dementia in care homes. Using a train-the-trainer model, the intervention was delivered by trained therapists, who trained 2 lead care staff members (WHELD champions) within each care home to implement the intervention over a 9-month period.

The primary objective of this study involving 24 care homes, with approximately 240 care staff, is to determine whether an online version of the optimized WHELD intervention, with or without supervision support, confers significant benefit in terms of improving attitudes of care staff caring for people with dementia and quality of care of residents with dementia living in care homes.

There is considerable interest in e-learning and dementia. Significant investment has been made into the production of resources for care staff but to date there appears to be no, or very limited, evaluation of the effectiveness of e-learning in either raising awareness amongst care staff, or increasing outcomes of care for people with dementia. In spite of the lack of evidence, e-learning remains popular with care home providers and managers, as they are perceived to be low-cost, can be delivered to staff on-site or even at home, and with minimal disruption to staffing routines and schedules.

The e-learning programme is based on the aforementioned WHELD RCT programme, which included over 80 care homes and 1000 participants in the study, and has already shown significant benefits in improvements in quality of life and agitation. This study will provide pilot testing to evaluate the effectiveness of an e-learning version.

Key secondary objectives will be to determine the specific impact of the e-learning intervention on a range of outcomes including quality of care, quality of the interaction of care staff with people with dementia, person-centered practice, staff knowledge about dementia and staff general health, work stress and experience working with residents with dementia.