Client Self-Assessment in Community Aged Care

Abstract

Self-assessment of support needs is a relatively new and under-researched phenomenon in domiciliary aged care. This article outlines the results of a comparative study focusing on whether a self-assessment approach assists clients to identify support needs and the degree to which self-assessed needs differ from an assessment conducted by community care professionals. A total of 48 older people and their case managers completed a needs assessment tool. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were used to ascertain older people's views and preferences regarding the self-assessment process. The study suggests that while a co-assessment approach as outlined in this article has the potential to assist older people to gain a better understanding of their care needs as well as the assessment process and its ramifications, client self-assessment should be seen as part of a co-assessment process involving care professionals. Such a co-assessment process allows older people to gain a better understanding of their support needs and the wider community aged care context. The article suggests that a co-assessment process involving both clients and care professionals contains features that have the capacity to enhance domiciliary aged care. Keywordsdomiciliary aged care, self-assessment, aging and the life course, sociology of health and illness, sociology, social sciences, social work, needs assessment, community aged care by guest on June 5, 2016 Downloaded from

Key Design Considerations Using a Cohort Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomised Trial in Evaluating Community-Based Interventions: Lessons Learnt from an Australian Domiciliary Aged Care Intervention Evaluation

“…Clients interested in participating in the trial from these organisations were randomly assigned to the five clusters contained 198 participants at Baseline and 137 participants at the end of the trial (Figure 2a). The full protocol for the trial has been reported previously [9]. In order to be eligible, clients had to be in receipt of a commonwealth aged care package.…”

“…The study was based on a cohort SW-CRT to evaluate an intervention designed for older people receiving domiciliary aged care. A detailed description of this study is beyond the scope of this article and has been published elsewhere [9]. Section seven provides a discussion and conclusion of the main points raised in the article.…”