DOES PERSON-CENTERED CARE CONTRIBUTE TO QUALITY OF LIFE?: GERMAN SHARED-HOUSING ARRANGEMENT RESULTS

摘要

German shared-housing arrangements (SHA) are alternative care settings, disconnected from traditional nursing homes and bound to the principle of normalization. They are often situated in ordinary apartment buildings and connected to the neighborhood. We investigated the amount and educational training of staff in relationship to residents’ quality of life (QoL) which is hardly investigated yet. In a cross-sectional study in 58 SHA in Berlin/Germany with a total of 396 residents we assessed real data of present staff as well as residents’ socio-demographics, QoL, challenging behavior and severity of dementia. Residents (78.4 years, 69.4% female) mostly (71%) had a medical diagnosis of dementia, predominantly with a severe stage. Nevertheless, QoL was on a moderate to good level. The staff-resident ratio for registered nurses was 0.2, for certified nursing assistants 0.6, which is higher than in traditional nursing homes. Within SHA no association was found for QoL and staff-resident-ratio.