Leads Dr Nicola Cornally & Dr Irene Hartigan
Researchers at the School strive to develop dynamic partnerships with older people, their families and clinical teams to find solutions to everyday challenges that enable people to live life in-the-moment yet focus on what matters most as they approach end-of-life. Advance care planning enables and empowers older people to make decisions about their care and treatment preferences and can reduce burdensome care, family conflict and crisis decision making. Our evidence-based research prepares older persons and their family to engage in necessary conversations and ensures that staff are trained in compassionate communication and a palliative approach to care.
Scaling Up The Family Carer Decision Support Intervention: A Transnational Effectiveness-Implementation Evaluation
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Funder EU joint programme on Neurodegenerative Disease(JPND)
This 4-year study is funded by the EU joint programme on Neurodegenerative Disease (JPND) with National Health Research Board support. (2019-2023)
The mySupport study is an international multisite trial of the Family Carer Decision Support (FCDS) Intervention in Nursing Homes.
In previous research, the Family Carer Decision Support (FCDS) intervention was found to reduce family carer decision-making uncertainty on establishing goals of care at the end of life and improve family carer satisfaction on fundamental choices for comfort and quality of care.
There are three core elements to the FCDS intervention:
- Provision of a Comfort Care Booklet to family carers of relatives with Advance Dementia.
- Training of nursing home staff.
- Delivery of a Family Care Conference (structured family meeting).
This study involves implementing the FCDS intervention into 12 nursing homes across 6 countries, two in the Republic of Ireland.
For further information view our explainer video on MySupport study.
Or link directly to our website where you will find our quarterly newsletter and over 15 blogs on Advance Care Planning and Palliative Care in Dementia.
Implementing Evidence Based Guidance for Dementia Paliative Care
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Funder Health Research Board - Applied Partnership Awards, 2018
This project developed and tested the implementation of best practice clinical guidelines Promoting Excellence in End-of-life Care for People with Dementia in care home settings. The guidelines focus on pain, hydration & nutrition and medication management in dementia palliative care. The project utilised participatory action research and implementation science frameworks.
Papers:
Timmons, S., O'Loughlin, C., Buckley, C., Cornally, N., Hartigan, I., Lehane, E., Finn, C. and Coffey, A., 2021. Dementia palliative care: a multi-site survey of long-term care STAFF’S education needs and readiness to change. Nurse Education in Practice, 52, p.103006.
Coffey, A., Hartigan, I., Timmons, S., Buckley, C., Lehane, E., O’Loughlin, C., O’Connell, S. and Cornally, N., 2021. Implementation of evidence-based guidance for dementia palliative care using participatory action research: examining implementation through the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Implementation Science Communications, 2(1), pp.1-14.
Buckley, C., Hartigan, I., Coffey, A., Cornally, C., O’Connell, S., O’Loughlin, C., Timmons, S., Lehane, E. (2022) Evaluating the use of participatory action research to implement evidence-based guidance on dementia palliative care in long-term care settings: A creative hermeneutic analysis International Journal of Older People Nursing