The PRESENCE study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Preferences of Older Self-funders in Navigating Community Social Care (PRESENCE)
IRAS ID
275339
Contact name
Mark Wilberforce
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of York
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 2 months, 31 days
Research summary
Background:
Older people who receive social care at home or in the community may have to pay for this themselves if they have a certain level of savings. This is known as “self-funding”. These self-funders and informal carers (for example, their families) should get information and help to find, choose and arrange the right care for them, otherwise they may face significant problems in ‘navigating’ their care. We do not know ‘who wants what’ when considering the type of information and guidance needed to help people choose care, so it is unclear what changes to make.
Aims:
• to look at what self-funders and informal carers most value when seeking, choosing and arranging their social care.
• how different groups of self-funders make their decisions.
What we will do:
1. Pilot a 'Discrete Choice Experiment' (DCE) questionnaire using a ‘think aloud’ interview. A DCE questionnaire presents a series of hypothetical situations describing how someone might be supported to navigate social care. People will work through a set of choice tasks whilst voicing their thought processes out loud as they move through the questionnaire. This will help us understand how people interpret key terms and evaluate opposing choices.
2. Implement the final DCE questionnaire with a large (=225) sample including those who currently self-fund their own care; informal carers; and those who may need future support. We will look at the results to identify distinct groups of self-funders who all value the same type of help.
3. Interview a sample of people from each distinct group found in (2) above. We will examine why they had particular preferences for getting help with their decisions, what that might “look like”, and whether a service that helped them to find and choose care would be something they would use.
REC name
South Central - Oxford C Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/SC/0213
Date of REC Opinion
11 May 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion