title: Implementation of a multicomponent psychosocial programme for persons with dementia and their families in Norwegian municipalities: experiences from the perspective of healthcare professionals who performed the intervention.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A randomised controlled intervention study was conducted in 17 Norwegian municipalities to provide home-dwelling people with dementia and their families with knowledge and skills to cope with the emerging problems and stresses of everyday life. It included training health professionals to carry out the intervention. Since little is known about possible benefits for health professionals of participating in such a study in terms of knowledge and change of practice as well as their views on whether the intervention is useful, we carried out this study.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the outcome of the study from the perspective of the healthcare professionals who participated in the intervention.
  
  
  METHODS
  Interviews with 19 health professionals were performed during 2012, using three focus groups and six individual interviews. The sample was purposive and included informants aged 34-61 years from 13 municipalities.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Three main categories emerged: challenges, new knowledge and service development. The category challenges details the challenges connected with professionals' participation in the intervention and how they dealt with them and is described in three subcategories. The category new knowledge demonstrates the knowledge the professionals achieved while conducting the intervention and is described through three subcategories. Service development presented how the informants' experiences could contribute to improve the provision of care and details in one subcategory.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results revealed a need for more knowledge among health professionals about the situation of home-dwelling persons with dementia and their families. The study indicated that health professionals must be more aware of these persons' abilities to find their own solutions to their problems. Structured individual interventions as well as group-based interventions in the early stages of dementia and throughout the course of the disorder seem beneficial. There is a need for better collaboration between the specialist health services, GPs and health workers in the municipalities.
authors.affiliation: Ageing and Health, Norwegian Centre for Research, Education and Service Development, Vestfold Hospital Trust, Tønsberg, Norway.
authors.forename: Aud
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Johannessen
authors.forename: Lene
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Povlsen
authors.forename: Frøydis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bruvik
authors.forename: Ingun
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ulstein
mesh_terms: D003704:Dementia / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D009664:Norway
keywords: community-based services; dementia; family carers; improvement of care; qualitative approach