Using the RE‐AIM framework to help implement an educational intervention for improving the care of persons with behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia in primary care

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AbstractApproximately 90% of persons living with dementia (PLWD) experience behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) over the course of their illness, including aggression, psychosis, and depression. With a growing lack of access to specialty geriatric care, most people with BPSD will receive care from their primary care providers. Many primary care practices lack knowledge, self‐efficacy, and established pathways to expert advice for managing these complex behaviors. We have developed a comprehensive educational intervention for primary care providers and clinical staff to help them better address BPSD. The educational intervention combines two complementary approaches: the academic detailing model and the DICE ApproachTM (DICE). In a recent pilot with two primary‐care integrated memory clinic teams, we noted improvements in provider knowledge and clinical staff self‐efficacy and comfort in BPSD and dementia care after 6‐months of participation in academic detailing and DICE training. In our current study, we use the RE‐AIM framework to guide the implementation planning for our educational intervention for primary care providers and clinical staff to help them better address BPSD. The RE‐AIM framework is a widely used tool for evaluating the implementation of health interventions to ensure they are both effective and sustainable. Twenty semi‐structured interviews will be completed among providers practicing in one of two primary care integrated memory clinics who participated in the pilot program (champions) and among their generalist primary care colleagues with no to minimal program experiences (novices), in one urban and one rural healthcare system. The RE‐AIM framework informed the design of our semi‐structured interviews and will help to frame content analysis for identifying potential barriers to implementation, for scale‐up to generalist primary care teams. Five interviews have been completed to date. Qualitative analyses are also underway, and results will be presented. Findings from this study will be used to develop an implementation plan for a future randomized controlled trial to measure the effectiveness of this intervention on health outcomes in PLWD and BPSD.