Establishing a set of research priorities in care homes for older people in the UK: a modified Delphi consensus study with care home staff

摘要

Background: currently, there is little evidence base for much of the care provided for older people in care homes. Givenudthe wide range of topics that require further investigation, and limited resources, one solution is to identify the priorities forudfuture research.udMethods: a modified Delphi technique was used to identify research topics and develop consensus among care home staffudparticipants. The survey was conducted across three rounds. Firstly to elicit topics that were considered by participants toudrequire further research, secondly to prioritise the long list of research questions, followed by a third round to reach a consensusudon the highest ranked 15 questions.udResults: eighty-three participants responded to the initial survey, providing 144 questions. Following analysis and reviewudagainst existing evidence, 76 research questions remained. Of note, 40/83 participants responded to the interim prioritisationudround and 43/83 participants responded to the final round, which ranked the top 15 research questions by importance.udTwo other groups of health and social care professionals also participated in the final ranking. The results from these groupsudhad a similar ordering to those of the original cohort of participants.udConclusion: this is the first study to establish a set of research priorities for older people in the UK care homes. It is hoped thatudsharing these results with clinicians, researchers and funding bodies will help to begin the process of ensuring that the future researchudagenda can be focused on the areas of greatest need. Further work to identify the priorities of other key stakeholders is required.