What constitutes a quality community aged care service—client perspectives: An international scoping study

Abstract

Overwhelmingly, older Australians (people aged 65 years and older or 50 years and older for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people) prefer to remain living in their own home rather than moving into residential care. To enable older Australians who require assistance to remain living at home, the Federal Government provides a wide range of community care services, the provision of which has increased substantially over the last 15 years. The importance of client preferences, prefaced by the introduction of consumer directed care across community aged care services, has gathered momentum in Australia following legislation in 2015. Older peoples' preferences differ in comparison to younger people with disability and those with mental health concerns. Older people focus more on the provision of services rather than the notion of independent living itself. This scoping review aimed to explore what aspects people aged 65 years and older consider to be important qualities of aged care services delivered in the community. A computerised search in MEDLINE, CINAHL, PubMed and PsychINFO and hand searches of the Cochrane database and Google Scholar were completed in May 2022. Sixty‐two articles met the selection criteria and were included in the review. Data were extracted using a fit‐for‐purpose protocol and analysed using the Miles and Huberman Model for thematic analysis. Results identified five themes representing quality domains that describe features that are important to clients: staff knowledge, respect for clients, a person‐centred approach, a collaborative partnership with clients and clear communication. When providers of community aged care services are planning to assess the quality of their services, these findings could be used to guide their evaluation. This will ensure that future services delivered accommodate the needs and preferences of clients who receive them.

Development of person‐centred quality indicators for aged care assessment services in Australia: A mixed methods study

“…Phase 1 : Five quality domains and their corresponding key attributes identified by clients 17 were used as the foundation for developing the proposed PC‐QIs (Table 2). This aimed to ensure the client's perspective of what a quality service looked like, was the key domain* in each proposed PC‐QI.…”

“…For service elements such as assessment of eligibility, the perspectives of what older adults perceive to be quality service is very limited. 17 The lack of quality domains that align with elements of assessment services that determine eligibility has been identified in an international scoping review. 17 This international scoping review explored elements older adults considered to be important in the provision of community aged care services given the dearth of literature on assessment for eligibility.…”

“…17 The lack of quality domains that align with elements of assessment services that determine eligibility has been identified in an international scoping review. 17 This international scoping review explored elements older adults considered to be important in the provision of community aged care services given the dearth of literature on assessment for eligibility. This research identified five client-perceived quality domains for community aged care services, including (i) staff knowledge; (ii) respect for clients; (iii) a person-centred approach; (iv) a collaborative partnership with a client; and (v) clear communication.…”

“…This research identified five client-perceived quality domains for community aged care services, including (i) staff knowledge; (ii) respect for clients; (iii) a person-centred approach; (iv) a collaborative partnership with a client; and (v) clear communication. 17 Additionally, this scoping review identified the key attributes that defined each of the quality domains.…”

“…PC-QIs that will then inform the final stage of the multiphase research programme, which is outside the scope of this paper. This study involved a scoping review of the literature,17 consultation with a patient and carer advisory board and a focus group with aged care…”