Exploring access to community care and emergency department use among people with dementia: A qualitative interview study with people with dementia, and current and bereaved caregivers.

Autor: Williamson LE; King's College London, Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care, Policy & Rehabilitation, London, UK., Sleeman KE; King's College London, Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care, Policy & Rehabilitation, London, UK., Evans CJ; King's College London, Cicely Saunders Institute of Palliative Care, Policy & Rehabilitation, London, UK.; Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, Brighton General Hospital, Brighton, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: International journal of geriatric psychiatry [Int J Geriatr Psychiatry] 2023 Jul; Vol. 38 (7), pp. e5966.
DOI: 10.1002/gps.5966
Abstrakt: Objectives: Emergency department (ED) attendance is common among people with dementia and associated with poor health outcomes. Literature suggests a link between access to community care and the ED, but we know little about the mechanisms behind this link. This study aimed to explore experiences of accessing community and emergency care among people affected by dementia.
Methods: Informed by critical realism, semi-structured online and telephone interviews were conducted with people with dementia and family caregivers, with and without experience of using the ED. Participants were recruited from across the United Kingdom using purposive sampling with maximum variation. A mostly experiential reflexive thematic analysis approach was used, applying the candidacy model of access to deepen interpretation.
Results: Two dyad and 33 individual interviews were conducted with 10 people with dementia, 11 current caregivers and 16 bereaved caregivers (men = 11, 70-89 years = 18, white ethnicity = 32). Three themes are reported: (1) Navigating a 'push system', (2) ED as the 'last resort', and (3) Taking dementia 'seriously'. Themes describe a discrepancy between the configuration of services and the needs of people affected by dementia, who resort to the ED in the absence of accessible alternatives. Underlying this discrepancy is a lack of systemic prioritisation of dementia and wider societal stigma.
Conclusion: Although a last resort, ED attendance is frequently the path of least resistance for people with dementia who encounter multiple barriers for timely, responsive access to community health and social care. Greater systemic prioritisation of dementia as a life-limiting condition may help to reduce reliance on the ED through essential development of post-diagnostic care, from diagnosis to the end of life.
(© 2023 The Authors. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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