Can an EASYcare based dementia training programme improve diagnostic assessment and management of dementia by general practitioners and primary care nurses? The design of a randomised controlled trial

Abstract

Background: Early diagnosis of dementia benefits both patient and caregiver. Nevertheless, dementia in primary care is currently under-diagnosed. Some educational interventions developed to improve dementia diagnosis and management were successful in increasing the number of dementia diagnoses and in changing attitudes and knowledge of health care staff. However, none of these interventions focussed on collaboration between GPs and nurses in dementia care. We developed an EASYcare-based Dementia Training Program (DTP) aimed at stimulating collaboration in dementia primary care. We expect this program to increase the number of cognitive assessments and dementia diagnoses and to improve attitudes and knowledge of GPs and nurses.

Knowledge and attitudes of undergraduate nursing students toward dementia: An Indian perspective

“…13 This instrument consists of 20 items with 7-point Likert scale that ranged from 'strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree' to reveal nursing students' attitudes toward dementia in two sub-domains namely "dementia knowledge' ( items 3,7,10,11,12,14,15,18,19,20) and "social comfort" (items 1,2,4,5,6,8,9,13,16,17) with good psychometric properties (Cronbach's alpha 0.83-0.85). Points ranging from 1 to 7 were given to each response such that the more positive the response, the higher the score.…”

“…Evidence suggests that the health services in developing countries were not adequately prepared to provide better services for people with dementia. 4 Studies indicate adequate knowledge of dementia among health care professionals likely to affect critical issues in care 5 and enhances better patient outcomes. 5,6 However, studies indicate that healthcare provision for people with dementia, largely based around staff time limitations, poor knowledge about dementia and lack of understanding about individual patient discarded because of incomplete responses.…”

Dementia diagnosis and management: a narrative review of changing practice

“…Of these, one still has results pending, 13 and one tested the implementation of guidelines for the diagnosis of dementia in Denmark. 14 The remaining six involved either delivering seminars or workshops to primary care physicians, or other educational interventions, such as facilitated smallgroup learning or the use of decisionsupport software.…”

“…Facilitated learning can be described as an educational process wherein the learners are actively involved by collaborating and negotiating in all components of their own learning. One of these studies 13 positive results from their interventions. The first was qualitative, used a facilitator to lead a small-group session, and showed, in focus group discussions after the intervention, that there was increased knowledge about dementia and increased motivation for self-directed learning.…”

“…A control group received the printed pocketbook of the guidelines only. Perry et al 2008; 13 GPs referred patients to the study who were then randomised to control or intervention. Geriatric Specialist Nurse visited patients at home for assessment using the EASYcare instrument (Richardson 2001 28 ).…”