Community-dwelling Older Adults
Conditions
Keywords
Program evaluation, Cost-effectiveness, Community participation, empowerment
Brief summary
Global aging and the growing burden of chronic diseases represent a challenge. Innovative interventions acting upon health determinants, like social participation, are required. Social participation, defined as the involvement of a person in activities that provide interactions with others in the community is critical to promote health and prevent disabilities. Many older adults do not have equitable opportunities to achieve full social participation, and interventions under-empower their personal and environmental resources and only reach a minority. To optimize current practices, the Personalised citizen assistance for social participation (APIC), an intervention demonstrated as being feasible and having positive impacts, needs further evaluation. The first aim of this study is evaluate the impacts of the APIC on older adults' health, social participation, life satisfaction and healthcare services utilisation. The second aim is to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the intervention. In parallel, the implementation of the APIC, including factors facilitating and impeding it, will be documented. Concerning the first two objectives, two hypotheses are formulated: 1) the APIC will prevent a decline in older women's and men's health, social participation and life satisfaction, and reduce their use of healthcare services, and 2) the APIC will be associated with lower costs, from older adults', healthcare system and societal perspectives, including healthcare expenditures.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALPersonalised citizen assistance for social participation(APIC)
The APIC involves a non-professional attendant who, after 2 to 5 days of training, provides a two to three-hour stimulation session each week over a six to eighteen-month period targeting significant social and leisure activities that are otherwise difficult for older adults to accomplish.
Sponsors
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Mélanie Levasseur
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Masking description
Due to the type of intervention, coordinators, volunteers and participants will not be blinded to the interventions. However, they will not be informed about the study hypotheses. Research assistants and the statistician responsible for the analysis will be blinded to the intervention until completion of the study.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
65 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
1. be aged 65 or older, 2. live at home or in seniors' residences, 3. be restricted in at least one instrumental activity of daily living (e.g. house cleaning, shopping), and 4. have a good understanding of French or English.
Exclusion criteria
* Moderate to severe cognitive impairments
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| v2 of the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) (''change'' is is being assessed) | Baseline, 12, 18, 24 months | Physical and mental health |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Social participation scale | Baseline, 12, 18, 24 months | Social participation |
| Life Satisfaction Index-Z | Baseline, 12, 18, 24 months | Life Satisfaction |
| Use of healthcare services-Standardized questionnaire | every two months over a 2-year period | Use of healthcare services |
Countries
Canada
Outcome results
None listed