Evaluation of the STAR e-learning course on dementia.

The EU faces challenges in its demographic future. The European society is ageing and as a result, the number of people with dementia will rise. At the same time the total labour population of the EU is expected to decrease. This means that more people are suffering from dementia while at the same time less professionals are available to care for them.

There are millions of informal carers, often elderly people with limited resources, who care for people with dementia at home to the best of their ability with varying levels of support from the State. In some countries, support from the State for people with dementia and carers (e.g. in the form of services, allowances and care structures) is quite well developed whereas in others, it is virtually inexistent.’

Another major trend is that of “importing” elderly ‘baby-sitters’ from Eastern Europe or outside of the EU in order to live-in with elderly relatives since many young people nowadays work and cannot themselves care and be around their loved ones all the time. Such influx and mobility of workers is ‘per-se’ positive, however provided that these groups get properly skilled, otherwise the effectiveness of such care will also be lessened and frustrations will occur from all angles – the elderly, the families and the care-workers themselves.
To improve knowledge about and care for community dwelling people with dementia, an e-learning course has been developed in the STAR project. This course will be evaluated among informal carers, volunteers and professionals who care for people with dementia.

The user friendliness and usefulness will eb evaluated, as well as the impact on of the course on knowledge, attitudes and approaches regarding dementia (primary outcomes), and on empathy, quality of life, burden and sense of competence (secondary outcomes).

A randomized controlled trial will be performed in the Netherlands and the UK. Additionally, an explorative evaluation study (one group pretest-posttest design) will be performed in Sweden and Italy.

Participants of the STAR e-learning course will improve in knowledge, attitudes and approaches regarding dementia.

Baseline, follow up at 4 months.

Data will be collected by on-line questionnaires at pre-test and post-test.

On-line e-learning course on dementia with access to peer and experts communities. The intervention consists of doing an e-learning course on dementia and taking part in on-line communities with peers and dementia experts to discuss dementia related issues. The e-learning course consists of 8 modules regarding different topics in dementia (what is dementia, getting a diagnosis, practical difficulties in daily life, emotional impact, support strategies, etc.).



Participants from the control group will not receive an intervention.