Describing the status quo of person-centred dementia care in different types of care units in German nursing homes: A convergent mixed methods study

Background

The policies and mission statements of nursing homes support the implementation of person-centred dementia care. The Dementia Policy Questionnaire assesses the content of person-centred dementia care in policies. To date, it is unknown whether these policies exist exclusively in dementia care units and whether the policies are consistent with the mission statements of nursing homes.

Objective

We aimed to (1) investigate nursing home care unit types regarding the existence of policies measured by the Dementia Policy Questionnaire, (2) explore whether these policies are addressed in the mission statements of the nursing homes, and (3) integrate both results.

Design

This is a convergent mixed methods study performed with a quantitative and qualitative dataset that was collected in the BeStaDem survey (2020).

Setting

The BeStaDem survey included licensed nursing homes in Germany.

Participants

A total of 134 nursing home administrators provided informed consent to participate in the BeStaDem survey.

Methods

For quantitative data, we performed Fisher's exact test to identify differences in the Dementia Policy Questionnaire item distribution of several types of care units (aim 1). To support the results of Fisher's exact test, we additionally applied logistic regression analysis. For qualitative data, we analyzed the mission statements deductively with the qualitative content analysis method (aim 2). For integration, we used a convergent triangulation approach (aim 3).

Results

The quantitative data collected from 134 German nursing homes show significant associations among person-centred dementia care policies, such as behavior assessment, and nursing homes with dementia care units. Regarding the qualitative data, of the 60 mission statements in total, eight mission statements of nursing homes with dementia care units exclusively address aspects such as dementia-specific interventions. The convergent triangulation approach shows that the answers given by the nursing homes in the quantitative survey are not always consistent with what they address in their mission statements.

Conclusions

Nursing homes with dementia care units provide more person-centred dementia care policies than other care unit types do but mostly do not address these aspects in their mission statements. The implementation of person-centredness benefits from the existence of policies and mission statements if nursing homes clearly address what is meant by person-centred dementia care in their nursing home.