Views on incontinence care in care homes: an exploration (VOICE)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Views on incontinence care in care homes: an exploration (VOICE)
IRAS ID
303838
Contact name
Jennifer Wheeldon
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of the West of England
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Not applicable, Not applicable
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 2 months, 31 days
Research summary
Incontinence symptoms are a significant issue for health and social care in the UK and can have huge implications on an individual basis. Over 14 million adults experience bladder control problems in the UK and 6.5 million experience bowel control difficulties. Symptoms of incontinence negatively impact an individual’s quality of life and ability for independent living; it is also associated with other risks and co-morbidities.
It is approximated that over 50% of older adult care home residents have urinary incontinence with faecal incontinence also an evident issue, with a prevalence ranging from 30-50% in UK care home residents. Early assessment, identification of symptoms and initial conservative management is advocated in all national guidance related to continence care. However, national audits of continence care conducted in various settings have repeatedly identified that healthcare professionals may inconsistently identify, assess and treat incontinence symptoms, and training in promoting robust assessment of continence needs may be insufficient. This indicates a potential gap between the evidence-based standards and the actual practice and provision of continence care and it is currently unclear to what extent care homes are affected by this.
VOICE aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of continence care provision in care homes via qualitative methods. Phase 1 of the project will involve ethnographic observations of the day-to-day routines in care homes to understand how care is provided and how organisational and personal cultures may influence care provision. Phase 2 of the project will use qualitative semi-structured interviews and focus groups of residents, residents’ relatives, care home staff and managers to further explore barriers and facilitators from their perspectives. The comprehensive understanding that VOICE will provide is an important first step to devising interventions to ultimately improve continence care provision in care homes.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
21/IEC08/0034
Date of REC Opinion
17 Nov 2021
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion