Emerging evidence: Decision-making for receiving paid home care for dementia in the time of COVID-19, a qualitative study (UK)

Clarissa Giebel, Institute of Population Health Sciences, University of Liverpool

The COVID-19 pandemic is having detrimental impacts on the care provision for people living with dementia. Uncertain as to how exactly social care had been influenced by the pandemic and its associated public health restrictions, we spoke to unpaid carers across the UK and asked them about their experiences of different social support services. One type of service that stuck out was paid home care. 

Carers seemed to face difficult decisions about whether or not to continue paid home care during the pandemic, and having different carers come in to see the person living with dementia. Many were afraid of the possibility of virus transmission, and as a result cancelled home care. As a result however, unpaid carers took on the additional caring duties and often felt overburdened. Others decided to continue receiving care, as they could not cope without. Some carers however were too afraid to cancel home care, as this was paid for by the local council. They were afraid that if they discontinue care now, they would not receive financial support in the future again.

The full article is here: https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12877-020-01719-0

The study was funded by the NIHR ARC NWC and the University of Liverpool COVID-19 Fund, and will be presented at this webinar on the 16th September:

1 thought on “Emerging evidence: Decision-making for receiving paid home care for dementia in the time of COVID-19, a qualitative study (UK)”

  1. Pingback: Liverpool Dementia & Ageing Research forum webinar: how COVID-19 restrictions have affected people with dementia and their carers, 16 Sept. – Resources to support community and institutional Long-Term Care responses to COVID-19

Leave a Reply