The Association Between Staff-Resident Interactions and Symptoms of Dementia: A Systematic Review
Open Access
- Author:
- Le Fevre, Genevieve
- Area of Honors:
- Nursing
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Liza L Behrens, Thesis Supervisor
Cara L Exten, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- staff-resident interaction
behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia
BPSD
resident-staff interaction
person living with dementia
PLwD
long-term care
nursing home
assisted living
quality of life
older adult
quality of interaction
dementia
care interaction - Abstract:
- BACKGROUND: Little is known on how to create meaningful staff-resident interactions for persons living with dementia (PLwD) in long-term care settings. However, this knowledge gap is pertinent to fill because no matter the age of an individual, quality of life should be of utmost importance. It is hypothesized that if more meaningful staff-resident interactions are created for this population, then there could be an increase in quality of life. PURPOSE: This systematic literature reviewed aimed to search and synthesize current evidence on the association between meaningful staff-resident interactions and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). METHODS: A comprehensive and saturated literature search was conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. The inclusion criteria were: 1) peer-reviewed research study, 2) sample of older adults >65 years, 3) setting in a long-term residential care facility, 4) have a sample affected by dementia, 5) clearly explains and implements the staff-resident interaction intervention, and 6) clearly evaluates the desired outcome of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD). Article selection and data extraction was conducted by two reviewers (GL and LB) using Covidence. A third reviewer (AP) resolved discrepancies. All studies were evaluated using the Johns Hopkins Nursing Evidence-Based Practice Guide for Level and Quality of Evidence. RESULTS: The final dataset provided 27 articles for full article review. Outcomes measured throughout these studies were agitation, aggression/resistiveness to care, depression, anxiety, mood, collective BPSD, and quality of life. It was found that across the outcome measures for each study, there is a common trend of a staff-resident interaction having beneficial effects on i resident’s BPSD. Specifically, a clear and significant decline was seen in outcome measures of aggression/RTC, depression, mood, collective BPSD, and quality of life. DISCUSSION: Research evidence suggests that nonpharmacological interventions are having positive effects on BPSD in PLwD. This study reiterates this by showing a meaningful staff- resident interaction can have beneficial effects on BPSD in older adults with dementia. For clinical practice implementations, it is recommended there should be an increased usage of currently developed person-centered staff-resident interaction tools. Also, it is recommended to incorporate more staff-resident interaction interventions into nurse care planning. For future research recommendations, the Quality of Interactions Schedule (QuIS) tool should be used as a process measure when conducting research on specific staff-resident interactions. Also, more meaningful staff-resident interaction tools should be created and tested so that they can be implemented into clinical practice.