Participation, Patient clinical trials

Inter-organizational Health Planning for Older Adults: Public Dental Care and Municipal Care

Patient participation is key for healthy ageing and essential in health planning and decision-making. Oral health is an important but sometimes neglected part of general health and there is little research on health planning in ordinary home settings where older adults, dental and nursing staff participate. It has been concluded that shared tools, such as common documentation, and working in teams enables person-centered care in ordinary home settings. Therefore, this protocol outlines the design of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) measuring and comparing effect of two models of team based oral health planning with a common tool (digital platform) in ordinary home care settings in Sweden. The overall aim of this project is to evaluate a person-centered inter-professional and inter-organizational model for oral health planning supported by a digital platform to enable healthy ageing. Following ethics approval, a study design was developed guided by the seven action-steps of the knowledge to action framework. In the sixth action-step, older adults within the existing dental care remuneration program in Sweden will serve as a base for the RCT. From there older adults,dental hygienists (DH) and nursing assistants (NA) will be randomized into test and control groups. The test group (n= 12 DH and 12 NA) will participate in a two-day course, where a three-step person-centered oral health model will be taught. Control group will be 12 DH within dental care remuneration program conducting business as usual (with unknown number of NA, due to present guidelines). In total 360 older adults/patients will be asked to participate. Test group and control group will respectively have 180 patients each, as such, each team (DH + NA) have 15 patients. Primary outcomes include diverse oral health aspects - the Revised Oral Assessment Guide and the Geriatric Oral Health Assessment Index. Secondary outcomes include a retrospective record review, a health economic evaluation, Person Centered care Assessment Tool and Oral Hygiene Ability Index. Additionally, qualitative studies from theoretical perspectives of change and learning based on interviews with key stakeholders will be conducted in both test and control group.