Abstract
IntroductionHigh quality guidance in home strategies is needed to enable older people to measure their home environment and become involved in the provision of assistive devices and to promote consistency among professionals. This study aims to investigate the reliability of such guidance and its ability to promote accuracy of results when measurements are taken by both older people and professionals.MethodTwenty-five health professionals and 26 older people participated in a within-group design to test the accuracy of measurements taken (that is, person’s popliteal height, baths, toilets, beds, stairs and chairs). Data were analysed with descriptive analysis and the Wilcoxon test. The intra-rater reliability was assessed by correlating measurements taken at two different times with guidance use.ResultsThe intra-rater reliability analysis revealed statistical significance (P < 0.05) for all measurements except for the bath internal width. The guidance enabled participants to take 90% of measurements that they were not able to complete otherwise, 80.55% of which lay within the acceptable suggested margin of variation. Accuracy was supported by the significant reduction in the standard deviation of the actual measurements and accuracy scores.ConclusionThis evidence-based guidance can be used in its current format by older people and professionals to facilitate appropriate measurements. Yet, some users might need help from carers or specialists depending on their impairments.
Highlights
High quality guidance in home strategies is needed to enable older people to measure their home environment and become involved in the provision of assistive devices and to promote consistency among professionals
The findings support the reliability of the developed guidance, with the bath internal width being the only exemption, which again was close to achieving statistical significance
The fact that occupational therapy technicians/assistant and the participating nurse did not have the same training in the provision of assistive devices as part of their undergraduate education is another factor that might impact on measurements
Summary
High quality guidance in home strategies is needed to enable older people to measure their home environment and become involved in the provision of assistive devices and to promote consistency among professionals. Currently there seems to be a lack of truly integrating these devices into users’ and their carers’ daily lives resulting in equipment abandonment (Kintsch and DePaula, 2002) This is a major issue worldwide that has been investigated in the United States (for example, Phillips and Zao, 1993, Riemer-Reiss and Walker, 2000), Australia (for example, Wiedlandt et al, 2006), the Netherlands (for example, DeBoer et al, 2009) and Italy (for example, Federici et al, 2016). The commonly reported abandonment rate falls within 30% one year after device delivery (for example, Phillips and Zao, 1993; RiemerReiss and Walker, 2000) This is a very large percentage associated with huge direct consequences to people’s lack of independence and quality of life, which in a way can be attributed to a failure of the services that have provided the abandoned pieces of equipment (Verza at al., 2006). This has a cost-related impact for the individual and the national healthcare system (Verza et al, 2006), and it may result in the loss of economic productivity of informal caregivers associated with the time spent to
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