A systematic review of the evidence on home care reablement services

Legg, Lynn; Gladman, John R.F.; Drummond, Avril E.R.; Davidson, Alex

Abstract

Objective
To determine whether publically funded ‘reablement services’ have any effect on patient health or use of services.

Design
Systematic review of randomised controlled trials and non-randomized studies in which reablement interventions were compared to no care or usual care in people referred to public funded personal care services. Data sources included: Cochrane central register of controlled trials, EPOC register of studies, trials registers, Medline, Embase, and Cinhal. Searches were from 2000 up to end February 2015.

Setting
Not applicable.

Participants
Investigators’ definition of the target population for reablement interventions.

Main outcome measures
Use of publically-funded personal care services and dependence in personal activities of daily living (PADL).
Results We found no studies fulfilling our inclusion criteria that assessed the effectiveness of reablement interventions. We did note the lack of an agreed understanding of the nature of reablement.

Conclusions
Reablement is an ill-defined intervention targeted towards an ill-defined and potentially highly heterogeneous population/ patient group. There is no evidence to suggest it is effective at either of its goals, increasing personal independence or reducing use of personal care services.

Citation

Legg, L., Gladman, J. R., Drummond, A. E., & Davidson, A. (2015). A systematic review of the evidence on home care reablement services. Clinical Rehabilitation, 30(8), https://doi.org/10.1177/0269215515603220

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 26, 2015
• Publication Date: Sep 15, 2015
• Deposit Date: Feb 28, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 28, 2017
• Journal: Clinical Rehabilitation
• Print ISSN: 0269-2155
• Electronic ISSN: 1477-0873
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 30
• Issue: 8
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0269215515603220
• Keywords: Reablement, older people, personal care services, multimorbidity, disability, independence, systematic review, randomized controlled trial, non-randomized controlled trial, public policy
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/761258
• Publisher URL: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269215515603220