Effectiveness of educational nursing home visits on quality of life, functional status and care dependency in older adults with mobility impairments: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Rationale, aims and objectives: Facilitating and maintaining functional status (FS) and quality of life (QoL) and avoiding care dependency (CD) are and will increasingly become major tasks of nursing. Educational nursing home visits may have positive effects on FS and QoL in older adults. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of educational home visits on FS, QoL and CD in older adults with mobility impairments.

Method: We performed a randomized controlled trial. The study was conducted in the living environments of 123 participants with functional impairments living in Hamburg, Germany. The intervention group received an additional nursing education intervention on mobility and QoL; the control group received care as usual. Data were collected from August 2011 to December 2012 at baseline, 6 months and 12 months of follow-up. The main outcomes were FS (Barthel Index), QoL (WHOQOL-BREF) and CD (Care Dependency Scale). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and generalized linear models.

Results: In total, 113 participants (57 in the intervention and 56 in the control group) were included in the study. The intervention had no statistical significant effect on FS, QoL and CD.

Conclusions: The intervention did not show the benefits that we assumed. Further studies on the effects of educational nursing interventions should be performed using different concepts and rigorous research methods.

Keywords: education; home visits; nursing; older people; physical skills; quality of life.