Interaction in problematic dementia and social care encounters
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding interaction in problematic dementia and social care encounters
IRAS ID
320048
Contact name
John Chatwin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
It is well established that care-home workers have a far-reaching influence on the well-being of the people they look after. However, in contrast to virtually every other area of healthcare there is still very little research examining how, at a detailed behavioural level, care workers deal with the specialised and difficult work they face.
This study builds on research highlighting the importance of the ‘hidden’ naturalistic skills and behaviours that underpin much high-quality care work. Here, we focus specifically on exploring how dementia care workers deal with a range of situations that they have reported to be particularly challenging: A person who persistently demands to ‘go home’ and becomes increasingly distressed when attempts to calm them are unsuccessful is a good example. Many person-centred dementia care models offer broad advice on how to handle such situations. However, even though they can be very common in dementia care, there has as yet been no attempt to uncover - at the micro level - how they actually ‘work’.
With the full consent of participants, we plan to video-record a wide range of every-day activity in a number of dementia care settings These recordings will then be analysed using a research method called Conversation Analysis (CA), focusing particularly on occasions when care workers deal with difficult or challenging situations. CA can uncover how the step-by-step actions and re-actions of people during these interactions lead to their successful (or un-successful) resolution.
Importantly too, we hope to actively involve participants in the research process by encouraging them to view video material that they feature in and share their perspectives on it. This will allow us to use our findings to develop training resources for care workers that are more fully connected to their real-world experience of dementia care.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/YH/0174
Date of REC Opinion
20 Sep 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion