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Co‐designing caregiver‐centered care health workforce competencies and training: Making the leap to support family caregivers of people living with dementia
Author(s) -
Parmar Jasneet,
Poole Lisa,
Anderson Sharon Dorothy,
Duggleby Wendy,
HolroydLeduc Jayna,
BrémaultPhillips Suzette,
Pollard Cheryl,
Charles Lesley,
Haq Anwar
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1002/alz.043043
Subject(s) - workforce , dementia , family caregivers , nursing , health care , workforce development , caregiver stress , psychology , medicine , political science , disease , pathology , law
Background Family caregivers [FCGs] provide over 80% of the care for people with dementia, chronic illness and impairments. Despite evidence of their contributions and consequences of caregiving, support for FCGs has not been a health system priority. Our innovative solution to reduce caregiver distress and support caregivers to maintain their wellbeing is to educate the health workforce to identify, engage, and support family caregivers throughout the care trajectory. Education to prepare health providers to effectively identify, engage, assess, and support all FCGs is innovative approach to addressing inconsistent system of supports for FCGs. Objective: We will present the co‐design process and introduce our Health Workforce Caregiver‐Centered Care Education focused on dementia. To ensure a specific person‐centered focus on family caregivers, we created the term “caregiver‐centered care” defined as a collaborative working relationship between families and healthcare providers in supporting family caregivers in their caregiving role, decisions about services, care management, and advocacy. Project Description: We designed our Caregiver Centered Care Education using effective practices for dementia education for the health workforce. The Caregiver Centered Care Competency Framework validated in March, 2019 underpins the design and evaluation. Methods We engaged over 100 multi‐level, interdisciplinary stakeholders familiar with dementia care from diverse settings. We ensured that we included FCGs of people living with dementia, to co‐design Caregiver Centered Care Education for the Health Workforce. Results We co‐designed dementia focused competency‐based education modules aligned with the previously validated Caregiver‐Centered Competencies for the health workforce. The teaching and learning resources include competency‐aligned educational modules, multimedia resources, and facilitators guide that are designed flexibly, to be tailored to settings and learners. Discussion: The hallmark of effective education is content relevant to learners’ needs and contexts. We will pilot test the Caregiver‐Centered Care Education, for acceptability and effectiveness, in five contexts: primary care, acute care homecare, supportive living, and long‐term care. Conclusion Our education will support caregiver‐centered care in all settings providing dementia‐related care. Health workforce support will be essential to maintaining FCG wellbeing and sustaining the family caregiving that reduces health system costs.