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. 2017 Aug 3;17(1):518.
doi: 10.1186/s12913-017-2456-0.

Perspectives of policy and political decision makers on access to formal dementia care: expert interviews in eight European countries

Anja Broda  1 , Anja Bieber  2 , Gabriele Meyer  2 , Louise Hopper  3 , Rachael Joyce  3 , Kate Irving  3 , Orazio Zanetti  4 , Elisa Portolani  4 , Liselot Kerpershoek  5 , Frans Verhey  5 , Marjolein de Vugt  5 , Claire Wolfs  5 , Siren Eriksen  6 , Janne Røsvik  6   7 , Maria J Marques  8 , Manuel Gonçalves-Pereira  8 , Britt-Marie Sjölund  9   10 , Bob Woods  11 , Hannah Jelley  11 , Martin Orrell  12 , Astrid Stephan  2 ; ActifCare Consortium
Affiliations

Perspectives of policy and political decision makers on access to formal dementia care: expert interviews in eight European countries

Anja Broda et al. BMC Health Serv Res. .

Abstract

Background: As part of the ActifCare (ACcess to Timely Formal Care) project, we conducted expert interviews in eight European countries with policy and political decision makers, or representatives of relevant institutions, to determine their perspectives on access to formal care for people with dementia and their carers.

Methods: Each ActifCare country (Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom) conducted semi-structured interviews with 4-7 experts (total N = 38). The interview guide addressed the topics "Complexity and Continuity of Care", "Formal Services", and "Public Awareness". Country-specific analysis of interview transcripts used an inductive qualitative content analysis. Cross-national synthesis focused on similarities in themes across the ActifCare countries.

Results: The analysis revealed ten common themes and two additional sub-themes across countries. Among others, the experts highlighted the need for a coordinating role and the necessity of information to address issues of complexity and continuity of care, demanded person-centred, tailored, and multidisciplinary formal services, and referred to education, mass media and campaigns as means to raise public awareness.

Conclusions: Policy and political decision makers appear well acquainted with current discussions among both researchers and practitioners of possible approaches to improve access to dementia care. Experts described pragmatic, realistic strategies to influence dementia care. Suggested innovations concerned how to achieve improved dementia care, rather than transforming the nature of the services provided. Knowledge gained in these expert interviews may be useful to national decision makers when they consider reshaping the organisation of dementia care, and may thus help to develop best-practice strategies and recommendations.

Keywords: Access to formal dementia care; Dementia; Expert interviews.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All participants in this study gave informed consent. This consent was written in UK, DE, NO, IE, and PT, and verbal in NL and SE. In IT, some experts gave verbal and some gave written informed consent. Each country applied for ethical approval with their responsible national or local authorities as required: Medische Ethische Toetsings Commissie (NL), Wales Research Ethics Committee 5, Bangor (UK), Ethics committee of the Medical Faculty, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (DE), Regional committee for medical and health research ethics, South-East B (NO), the Regional Ethics Review Board (SW), Dublin City University Research Ethics Committee (IE), Ethics Committee of the Nova Medical School/Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (PT), Comitato Etico, IRCCS San Giovanni di Dio “Fatebenefratelli” (IT). The study protocol complies with the Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act and codes on ‘good use’ of clinical data.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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