A preliminary study on the development of care staff's Final‐Stage Decision‐Making Support Scale for older adults with dementia
Mizue Suzuki, Yatami Asai, Masako Sato, Takuya Kanamori, Keigo Inagaki, Masao Kanamori- General Medicine
Aim
This preliminary study aimed to develop a care staff Final Life‐Stage Decision‐Making Support Scale (FS‐DM) for older adults with dementia (OwDs) in geriatric facilities.
Methods
The FS‐DM items were developed from focus group interviews with care staff and reviewed through discussions with several experts in dementia care. A questionnaire survey was conducted among care staff in geriatric facilities from February to March 2021.
Results
In total, 138 carers (110 [79.7%] women and 28 [20.3%] men, mean age: 41.5 ± 2.3 years) participated. Among them, 91 (65.9%) were professional caregivers, and 36 (26.1%) were nurses. The FS‐DM was developed using a factor analysis, which resulted in 11 items grouped into three factors’, as it is the three factors: (1) support for the realization of the wills of OwDs in their final life‐stages through collaboration with families and multiple professionals; (2) consideration of communication regarding the formation and expression of the wills of OwDs in their final life‐stages; and (3) support for eliciting the wills of OwDs during their final life‐stages according to their decision‐making ability and values. The factor loadings ranged from 0.385 to 0.827, and the accumulated contribution ratio was 61.03%. The reliability analysis yielded a Cronbach's α of 0.740–0.855. The first and second factors of the FS‐DM were significantly correlated with the Approaches to Dementia Questionnaire item “Nurses' attitudes towards support for decision‐making.”
Conclusion
Our results suggest that the FS‐DM could provide supportive care for OwDs to formulate, express, and realize their will, and that it has a degree of reliability and validity. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2024; ••: ••–••.