DPACT Dementia Support Study v.2.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Dementia Person Aligned Care Team (DPACT) Dementia Support Study
IRAS ID
264596
Contact name
Richard Byng
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Devon Partnership NHS Trust
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN80204146
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 26 days
Research summary
The burden for people diagnosed with dementia and their carers is substantial and access to support and the type of support is extremely variable. A number of different Dementia Support Worker (DSW) type roles exist in different settings around the country. While they are valued there is lack of evidence as to the optimal model and whether or not it is cost effective. Commissioners are therefore reluctant to invest fully in these services.
Our programme aims to identify important parts of good dementia support and test its delivery in GP practice. This proposal is to develop and test the intervention and trial design before a later full trial. The DSW intervention based in primary care will address: mental wellbeing; physical health; support to achieve social goals and improved quality of life.
Supervised by experienced mental health care workers the DSWs will work alongside GPs and practice nurses and link to community resources. We will train the DSWs to use a coaching approach to agree goals linked to personal priorities including future care decisions. We think this approach has the best chance to ensure physical health care is prioritised alongside other social and emotional needs.We will also develop and test the methods for recruiting individuals and carers into the study, as well as to collect data to help decide on outcome measures for the main trial.
REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/SC/0264
Date of REC Opinion
20 Jun 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion