Home care in Europe: a systematic literature review

Abstract

BackgroundHealth and social services provided at home are becoming increasingly important. Hence, there is a need for information on home care in Europe. The objective of this literature review was to respond to this need by systematically describing what has been reported on home care in Europe in the scientific literature over the past decade.MethodsA systematic literature search was performed for papers on home care published in English, using the following data bases: Cinahl, the Cochrane Library, Embase, Medline, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, and Social Care Online. Studies were only included if they complied with the definition of home care, were published between January 1998 and October 2009, and dealt with at least one of the 31 specified countries. Clinical interventions, instrument developments, local projects and reviews were excluded. The data extracted included: the characteristics of the study and aspects of home care 'policy & regulation', 'financing', 'organisation & service delivery', and 'clients & informal carers'.ResultsSeventy-four out of 5,133 potentially relevant studies met the inclusion criteria, providing information on 18 countries. Many focused on the characteristics of home care recipients and on the organisation of home care. Geographical inequalities, market forces, quality and integration of services were also among the issues frequently discussed.ConclusionsHome care systems appeared to differ both between and within countries. The papers included, however, provided only a limited picture of home care. Many studies only focused on one aspect of the home care system and international comparative studies were rare. Furthermore, little information emerged on home care financing and on home care in general in Eastern Europe. This review clearly shows the need for more scientific publications on home care, especially studies comparing countries. A comprehensive and more complete insight into the state of home care in Europe requires the gathering of information using a uniform framework and methodology.

Depressive symptoms of the elderly people and caregiver’s burden in home care

“…2017; 35 (2) was associated with Parkinson's disease (p=0.016) and to have a male caregiver (p=0.006). Caregiver's burden was associated with daily life activities such as bathing (p=0.021).…”

“…A systematic review of 74 articles from 15 European countries identified that home care is essentially provided to the elderly people, through HC agencies and generally with public funding. (2) Brazilian literature is still restricted to the topic. (3) In the national context, HC is proposed as a care modality integrated into the health care network and characterized by a set of health promotion, prevention, and treatment of diseases, palliation and rehabilitation actions carried out at home to guarantee the continuity of care.…”

Modelling home care organisations from an operations management perspective

“…A recent review of Genet et al (2011) points out that the majority of research analyses only one aspect of the HC system and does not address the entire subject. This paper aims to bridge this gap.…”

Creation of complexity assessment tool for patients receiving home care

“…When analyzing instruments for the assessment of patients receiving home care in other countries as well as in Brazilian trial runs (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) , the authors found considerable diversity of models and organizations in home care in the last few years, in addition to various study designs and sample characteristics. However, this analysis does not give a complete understanding of the main aspects of home care in those countries and in those services, especially public HC services, that are defined mainly by their humanized and inclusive nature, with user-centered care plans and multidisciplinary health teams.…”