Monitoring and improving the quality of person-centred care in health and social settings using Dementia Care Mapping (DCM): Staff experiences of implementation barriers and supports

Abstract

Background: Dementia Care Mapping (DCM) is a person-centred care quality monitoring and improvement tool used for nearly 20 years in formal dementia care settings and there are thousands of people trained in its use internationally. However, little is known about if and how DCM is used in practice or regarding application of inter-rater reliability checks to ensure data quality.

Aims and Objectives: This study aimed to explore the application of DCM in practice in the UK.

Methods: A mixed methods design including an on-line survey and in-depth, semi-structured interviews was employed. Results: There were 98 survey respondents, representing 71 health and social care, University/research and training/consultancy organisations. Twenty-one people participated in the semi-structured interviews. Fifty-nine percent of survey respondents had used DCM since completing training. Those working in clinical roles and in health and social care provider organisations were least likely to have used DCM. A range of barriers and supports to use of DCM in practice after training were reported, including lack of management support and time. The majority of those who had used DCM also conducted inter-rater reliability checks at least once per year or more frequently. Of the 20% who did not the main barriers to this were absence of someone to conduct the checks with and lack of time and resources.

Discussion and Conclusions: The study has shown that it is possible to apply an evidence-based quality monitoring and improvement tool such as DCM to support implementation of person-centred care in practice, despite widespread limitations on time and resources as well as to identify a range of setting conditions that can help or hinder implementation.