Research Priority Setting in Care Homes

The Research Priority Setting in Care Homes study is inviting care home staff throughout the UK to act as an ‘expert panel’ to identify the areas where more research is needed for older people living in care homes.

Background

At the Centre for Trials Research, we are looking at new ideas for research to improve care provided for older people living in care homes. Very little research is currently carried out in care homes; however, older people are likely to have more complex health conditions requiring high levels of care, than other groups. Research carried out in hospitals and with people in the community is not necessarily transferable to those who require long-term care, who have specific healthcare needs.

We are asking those involved in providing care for older people in care homes to help us identify a set of the top unanswered questions about caring for residents that they want research to address, to make sure future research is addressing the right questions.

Study design

Care home staff throughout the UK will be invited to join an ‘expert panel’. Consensus building techniques will be used to identify research topics, and develop consensus among care home staff. The Delphi method is a structured process that uses a series (or rounds) of questionnaires to gather information and rounds are continued until group consensus is reached. Using a modified Delphi technique, these rounds will be conducted by completing an online survey, postal questionnaire, or by attending a local workshop event hosted by research networks as part of the NIHR Enabling Research in Care Homes programme (ENRICH).

During the first round we will ask those taking part to identify which areas of care provided in care homes they feel would most be helped by research. During the second and third rounds, we will ask them to rank them in order of importance, until agreement on a shortlist of topics is reached.

The aim of the study is to identify the top 15 research questions that those taking part consider the priority areas for future research.

Care provided for older people requiring long term care is an under-researched area. This will be the first UK study to identify a set of priorities for research in care homes. By sharing what we find with other researchers, clinicians, care providers, and research funders, we hope to help shape research involving older adults living in care homes, and help improve the care provided by ensuring it is based on evidence to show what works best. Further research will be needed to address the questions identified as priorities.