Can Feedback to care home staff help improve residents' quality of life?

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a feasibility study conducted in four care homes for older people in England. The aim of the study was to give care home staff feedback about residents’ social care-related quality of life (SCRQoL) and explore the feasibility of conducting a cluster-randomised control trial of the impact of the feedback in the future. In evaluating feasibility, we examine the acceptability of the data collection to those living and working in the homes and discuss how care home staff responded to the feedback. SCRQoL, measured using the care homes version of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT), was collected at baseline and used to give outcomes-focused feedback to care homes staff. Three months after giving the feedback, researchers returned to repeat the data collection and interview managers about any changes they might have made following the feedback. Unfortunately, one home had to be excluded from the analysis due to a sudden change of ownership which was underway during the time two data collection. Whilst overall sample sizes are small (n=51 residents across three homes), attrition in the remaining three homes was unusually low - nobody withdrew from the study for any reason. The baseline and follow-up scores of 51 residents across the remaining three homes are presented and discussed. We end by considering the challenges of delivering researcher-led interventions in care homes and discuss alternative study designs for future research