Evaluation of a decision support tool (application) for district nurses and dementia case managers

With a growing emphasis on community-based dementia care, nurses and case managers play an

important role in identifying practical problems hindering people with dementia (PwD) to live at home

and advising them on possible solutions to facilitate aging in place. Both are complex and challenging

tasks for professionals. To support nurses and case managers with these tasks a decision support tool

in the form of an application (app) on a tablet PC has been developed. The aim of this study is to

evaluate the efficacy in terms of sense of confidence of professionals with regard to problem

assessment and advices on possible solutions, uniformity in problem identification, added value of the

app and its usability.

The study design consists of a randomized controlled trial with two arms (intervention and control

group). In a laboratory setting nurses, case managers and nursing students are asked to analyze once

a case describing the situation of community-dwelling person with dementia and to provide

suggestions for possible solutions to deal with the detected problems. Participants in the interventions

are asked to use the decision support app while participants in the control group were asked to use

their usual way of working.

Immediately after intervention is completed

The intervention is a decision support tool (application installed on a tablet PC) supporting professionals in conducting a problem assessment and giving advices on possible solutions aiming to facilitate aging in place of people with dementia.
Participants in the intervention group should conduct a problem assessment and give advices on possible soultions for problems which can hinder people with dementia to live at home. They are asked to conduct the problem assessment and advices on possible solutions according to their usual way of working complemented by the decision support app.
Particpants in the control group are asked to conduct the problem assessment and advices on possible solutions according to their usual way of working only.