Home care service utilisation by people with dementia—A retrospective cohort study of community nursing data in Australia

Progressive aged care reforms are shifting dementia care into the community. These efforts have been shown to prevent transition to residential aged care facilities and hospitals. There is a paucity of studies examining the utilisation of home care services for people living with dementia. This study aims to address the current knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive summary of older adults receiving home care and comparing service use for people with and without dementia. A retrospective secondary data analysis was conducted using routine data prospectively collected from a cohort ( n  = 2,703 with dementia matched to 9,224 without dementia; total 11,927) using a community home nursing service in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia, in 2014. Descriptive statistics compared individuals with and without dementia on client‐level demographics and their episode of home care service use. A comparative analysis on select variables was also performed using a conditional Poisson regression to estimate relative risk (RR). Compared to older adults without dementia, people with dementia were more likely to be born overseas (RR 1.10, 95% CI [1.03–1.19]), require an interpreter (RR 1.41, 95% CI [1.26–1.59]), and live with family (RR 1.09 [1.01–1.16]). When examining an individual's episode of care, people with dementia were more likely to require acute care (RR 1.07, 95% CI [1.01–1.14]) and be discharged from home care with personal care services (RR 1.46, 95% CI [1.24–1.72]). People with dementia were less likely to be referred from a hospital (RR 0.73, 95% CI [0.69–0.77]), achieve their home care goals (RR 0.91, 95% CI [0.87–0.94]), or die while in receipt of home care services (RR 0.82, 95% CI [0.72–0.94]). Our findings suggest that people with dementia have different socio‐demographic characteristics and interactions with home care services compared to people without dementia.