Community support for caring relatives of people with dementia: qualitative analysis using the Theoretical Domains...

Although caring relatives of people with dementia are a mainstay of many care systems, the availability of support services for them within the municipal community shows deficiencies. Adopting the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) this study aims to investigate 1) which of the TDF domains adapted to gerontology show up in public dialogue, and 2) the results that public dialogues produce in terms of support services for caring relatives.

The data consists of town hall meetings and focus groups from 14 municipal communities in Germany. Participants were caring relatives and stakeholders of the communities. A qualitative content analysis was conducted, focusing on the assessment of three TDF domains, namely knowledge, goals, and sociopolitical context as well as outcomes of care optimisation.

With regard to domain knowledge, it was evident that in every community there were actors aware of the situation and relevance of carers and their relatives. Only some actors mentioned goals for optimising the care of the target group. The sociopolitical context is often addressed through statements about incomplete requirements.

Overall, a relation between the discussion about the domains in public dialogues and changes in supporting carers of people with dementia can be assumed. The results indicate that an increased discussion about the domains within town hall meetings influences the actors and their statements with regard to the improvement of support services for caring relatives of people with dementia. Since the domains were not developed exclusively for the outlined context, this approach can also be applied to other areas of care.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10389-022-01744-w.