Implementation of dementia care management in routine care (RoutineDeCM): a study protocol for process evaluation

Dementia care management is a complex intervention intended to support persons with dementia and their (caring) relatives in home-based care arrangements. Dementia care management was developed in the federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in Germany and subsequently adapted for the German region of Siegen-Wittgenstein, where it will now be implemented. Four different service providers will carry out the implementation process. This study protocol describes the planned procedures for the parallel evaluation of the implementation process.

A multiple embedded case study design was chosen for the planned process evaluation. Data collection and analysis will be informed by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change, the Medical Research Council framework for conducting process evaluations of complex interventions and the Taxonomy of Outcomes for Implementation Research. Information (qualitative and quantitative) will be collected from all stakeholders involved in the dementia care management intervention (ie, dementia care managers, general practitioners, people with dementia).

The process evaluation is conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, the recommendations on good scientific practice, the research ethics principles of the Code of Ethics of the German Society of Nursing Science, and on the basis of ethical approval from the Clinical Ethics Committee of University Medicine Greifswald (BB 110/22). The results of the process evaluation will be disseminated through reports to the funders of the study and also as a summary of recommendations for the sustainable implementation of dementia care management for future implementers. We also plan to publish the results of this process evaluation in an international peer-reviewed journal.

NCT05529277, Registered 7 September 2022, https://beta.

gov/study/NCT05529277.