Background:

Person-centred care (PCC) is a fundamental concept in the care of people with dementia. It places the person with dementia at the centre of care. Although the implementation of PCC is now generally demanded as state-of-the-art dementia care and is, for example, embedded in (inter)national statements and guidelines on dementia care, the implementation of person-centred dementia care (PCdC) in care practice and its translation into care routines remains challenging and often fails. This is because its underlying theoretical assumptions are complex. Furthermore, its realisation is less about the implementation of learnable care techniques than about an underlying attitude to care. Achieving PCdC therefore requires a whole-system approach that considers not only care professionals and their individual characteristics, but also the characteristics of the care environment (e.g., care culture, role allocation and skill mix, networks/communication, leadership, potential for innovation/risk taking, physical environment, flexibility of organisational structures).

There are several (evidence-based) approaches that can help build organisational capacity for PCdC in nursing homes. However, there is a lack of concrete and practical strategies to support nursing homes in selecting and applying those approaches that are tailored to their specific organisational context and to their individual needs and state of PCdC.

Aims:

The aim of the study is to develop a toolbox to support nursing homes in building organisational capacity to implement and sustain person-centred dementia care.

Method:

Four subsequent studies will be conducted to develop the toolbox:

1. Scoping review to identify and synthesise available evidence on practical, hands-on strategies for building organisational capacity to implement and sustain person-centred dementia care in nursing homes.
2. Cross-sectional qualitative study to explore the perspectives of managers and staff in nursing homes on building organisational capacity to implement and sustain PCdC.
3. Co-design approach using workshops to develop a first version of the toolbox to support nursing homes in building organisational capacity to implement and sustain PCdC, based on the findings of sub-studies 1 and 2.
4. Nominal group technique to validate the toolbox with stakeholders and experts on PCdC.

Project goals

A practical and user-oriented toolbox will be developed to support nursing homes in developing a long-term strategy to build organisational capacity to implement and sustain PCdC, tailored to their specific organisational context.

The toolbox will provide:

• guidance on how to assess the current status of person-centred dementia care and corresponding organisational areas for improvement.
• an overview of practical, hands-on strategies for building organisational capacity to implement and sustain person-centred dementia care - flexibly combinable according to needs.
• guidance on how to evaluate the actions taken.