Digital support for quality assurance in 24-hour caregiving at home: a randomized controlled trial investigating the effects on quality of life and professional skills of paid 24h-caregivers.

Background: Regarding the care of older adults, 24-h home-care represents a cornerstone, with > 32,000 service users in Austria. Our research project 24hQuAALity aimed to develop and evaluate a distributed client-server software solution for the support and quality assurance of this home-care service. In this trial, we investigated the effects of this intervention on the quality of life and professional skills of paid 24h-caregivers in Austria.

Methods: The application used in our study comprises an e-learning platform, an integrated emergency management, networking opportunities, and an electronic care documentation system in the native language of the 24h-caregivers. The trial was conducted using a parallel three-arm study design to evaluate (i) a control group, which performed usual home care, (ii) a partial intervention group, which used the e-learning and networking platforms, and (iii) a full intervention group, which used the entire intervention (e-learning platform, networking platform, and digital care documentation). Primary self-reported outcomes were the standardized ASCOT for Carers score and a score based on responses to project-specific efficacy questions.

Results: Among the 110 24h-caregivers who were randomly classified into the three groups, ASCOT for Carers score data were available for 57 and 35 24h-caregivers at 5- and 9-month follow-up examinations, respectively. At 9 months, 24h-caregivers receiving any intervention rated the ASCOT for Carers score (not significantly) better than the controls (p = 0.05, η = 0.15), mainly in the domain "feeling encouraged and supported". At 9 months, 24h-caregivers receiving any intervention rated the project-specific Efficacy score significantly better than the controls (p = 0.02, η = 0.20), mainly due to better ratings in the subitems "satisfaction with current docu", "docu supports doing my job", " I'm well prepared for emergencies", "my professional skills are adequate for doing my job", and "communication with contacts".

Conclusions: Providing e-learning and e-documentation devices to 24h-caregivers improved their care-related quality of life, mainly because they felt more encouraged and supported. Moreover, these interventions improved their self-perceived professional skills. As an extrapolation of findings, we found that these interventions could empower 24h-caregivers and improve the quality of home-care services provided by them.

Trial Registration: Digital Support for Quality Assurance in 24-h Caregiving at Home was registered and posted on the ClinicalTrials.gov public website (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04581538).