nursing students' visits to older adults with multiple chronic conditions

Conditions: Chronic Disease

Summary: background the concurrence of multiple chronic conditions in older adults is associated with increased healthcare expenditure, increased hospital admissions, consultations and pharmaceutical expenditure. having been diagnosed with multiple chronic conditions is associated with biopsychosocial health deterioration, worsening quality of life and increased mortality in older adults. consequently, older adults with multiple chronic conditions present complex health statuses that require healthcare professional to focus on promoting health and independence through self-care. available evidence suggests that the implementation of programs with individualized interventions focused on health promotion could improve self-care and other related variables in older people with chronic conditions. in this regard, the world health organization recommends the implementation of community health promotion programs including at least 5 home-visits carried out by healthcare professionals to promote self-care, independence, and quality of life amongst older adults with chronic conditions. however, the evidence on the cost-effectiveness of such visiting programs is inconsistent, which makes it difficult to integrate them into the services offered by public-funded healthcare systems. in search of more effective interventions to improve self-care and other related variables amongst older adults with multiple chronic conditions, nursing student visits could be a valid, effective alternative. some studies suggest that the implementation of periodic follow-up programs (visits or telephone calls) by nursing students not only improves their knowledge and attitudes in relation to the care of older adults, but they could also have a positive impact on patients. study's hypothesis a program of supervised visits carried out by nursing students will significantly improve self-care behaviors and other related variables amongst older adults with multiple chronic conditions. aim the aim of the visitame project is to examine the short-term (12 weeks) and medium-term (6 months) effects of a nursing students' home-visit programme on self-care behaviors amongst older adults with multiple chronic conditions. study design a parallel two-arm randomized controlled trial (rct) will be carried out. participants will be randomly assigned to either an intervention group (ig) or a control group (cg).


Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: * age ≥ 65 years. * having been diagnosed with more than one chronic condition. * living at home (community-dwelling). * signing the informed consent to participate in the study. exclusion criteria: * having cognitive impairment (pfeiffer test \> 2 failures). * having been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition (for example: schizophrenia). * being a beneficiary of any of the services offered by the fund of the spanish national system for autonomy and support for dependency. * being a beneficiary of private personal assistance to help with functional dependency. * participate in a program of similar nature from any public or private entities.

Keywords: chronic disease older adult self-care home-visit nursing student