Citation: Elvish R, Burrow S, Cawley R, et al. ‘Getting to Know Me’: The second phase roll-out of a staff training programme for supporting people with dementia in general hospitals. Dementia (London). 2018;17(1):96-109.

Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26924840/

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Article Summary:

This is a Medline indexed article that evaluated the efficacy of training healthcare workers to adequately and confidently take care of dementia patients who are admitted to the hospital. I chose this article because of a patient I saw both during admission in the emergency department (H&P#2) as well as a few days later while on nights and on the floor. The 91-year-old patient came from a skilled nursing facility after a low hemoglobin from her primary care physician’s labs. She had dementia, was confused at baseline and a poor historian. After seeing the patient in the emergency department and checking in on her on the floor, I realized that I do not always feel confident when evaluating and caring for patients with dementia. Therefore, I wanted to read on any programs or measures available or evaluated for healthcare workers to adequately take care of this vulnerable population. This article was published within the last five years and evaluated a dementia training program for hospital staff.

This study was a follow-up to the initial study that utilized a dementia training program for healthcare workers and found that confidence in working with dementia patients and knowledge about dementia increased in staff following completion of the program. The current study assessed outcomes before and after the training and utilized two scales – Confidence in Dementia (CODE) scale and Knowledge in Dementia (KIDE) Scale to analyze the outcomes. Hospital staff from multiple services such as stroke rehabilitation, neurology, complex care, neurosurgery, and many more were included. The staff was trained in a six-hour program in one training day. A total of 607 were trained, with 480 participants who were eligible for analysis. 50% were nurses, 21% healthcare assistants, 4% were therapists, 4% cadet nurses, 2% practitioners and assistant practitioners, 1% student nurses, 1% housekeeping staff and 5% pharmacist, clinical educators, dieticians, a podiatrist, a dentist and 12% unknown. 68% of the staff reported no previous training in dementia care. Pre-post scores for both the CODE scale and KIDE scale were significantly higher immediately after the training in comparison to immediately before the training.

Limitations of this article were addressed including no control group. Additional limitations include identifying the most effective programs for dementia care training, identifying the longevity of training on confidence and care, evaluating direct patient care/outcomes from these programs, evaluating more clinicians, and assessing this type of program in the United States. Despite these limitations, it is evident that healthcare workers do not believe they are adequately trained in caring for dementia patients, who require a different level of care. Thus, identifying, evaluating, and implementing such training programs can profoundly aid in clinicians feeling more confident caring for their patients.