RCT of Health-promoting Intervention for Older Foreign-born Adults

Göteborg University131 enrolled

Overview

The overarching aim with this study was to develop, implement and evaluate a health promoting programme for people from Finland or the Western Balkan region, who were 70 years of age or older and independent daily activites (1). The aim of the programme was to prevent or delay dependence in daily activities, health decline, and frailty. The study focused on both evaluation and implementation and the data collection finished in 2016

The study has developed tools for collaboration between the target group, staff and researchers, as well as with tools to bridge barriers to health promotion. For example, alternative ways to recruit participants and to collect and analyse data in studies with and for people who are ageing in a migration context. The findings describe how a person-centred approach could be used to make use of the resources of the target groups, and visualise methods to bridge linguistic barriers. The education material from Older people in the risk zone has also been translated to Bosnian Serbo-Croatian and Finnish.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Enrollment

131

Conditions

Health Behavior

Interventions

Senior meetingsBEHAVIORAL

The intervention will be led by professionals such as a registered occupational therapist, a nurse, a physical therapist, and a social worker. The intervention will comprise four weekly meetings in small groups (4-6 participants) in addition to an individual follow-up home visit two to three weeks after the last senior meeting. To use groups involve the possibility of peer education where participants in a person-centeredness perspective are seen as experts on their own situation and learn from each other. The relationship between the personnel and the participants in the senior meetings can be described as a partnership. Respect for the participant and his/her values, and that the participant gets an opportunity to maintain and develop their own power over their own everyday activities will be essential in the meeting.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 70 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * Foreign-born from Finland or any of five countries in the Western Balkans (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia) * 70 years of age or older * Living in Angered, Gothenburg * Living in their ordinary housing * Not dependent on informal or formal help in daily activities Exclusion Criteria: * Impaired cognition, Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) below 80% of administered items

Locations (1)

Synneve Dahlin-Ivanoff

Gothenburg, Sweden

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Change of Activities of Daily Life (ADL)

The ADL-staircase

Time frame: change from baseline at 6 months and 1 year

Change of Sense of Coherence (KASAM)

KASAM (by Antonovsky)

Time frame: change from basline at 6 months and 1 year

Secondary Outcomes

Change of Fatigue

The Mob-T scale

Time frame: baseline, 6 months, and 1 year

Change of Grip strength

North Coast-dynamometer

Time frame: baseline, 6 months, and 1 year

Change of Physical activity

Questionnaire and Physical and domestic activity scale