Mouna Sawan
Evaluating organisational culture of Residential Aged Care Facilities to reduce the inappropriate use of psychotropic medications in residents living with dementia
Award
Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration Pilot Grant
Status
In progress
Start Date
1 June 2022
About the project
Psychotropic medications, i.e., medications that can act on the brain, are often used to treat changed behaviours related to dementia. Inappropriate use (where the actual or potential harms of therapy outweighs the benefit for the individual) of psychotropic medications is particularly high among older adults living with dementia in residential aged care facilities.
The usage rates vary among residential aged care facilities, and the organisational culture is an important contributor. This proposal aims to validate an organisational culture evaluation tool so that residential aged care facilities providers can identify the tailored strategies needed to support the appropriate use of psychotropic medications in residents living with dementia. We will be partnering with aged care stakeholders, including people living with dementia and their carers to provide feedback on the tool.
We will also recruit residential aged care facility staff and healthcare professionals to participate in a survey to ensure that items in the tool measure what it is intended to measure and enable scoring of the tool to provide feedback to residential aged care facility providers. The research project will provide a validated, user-friendly tool to evaluate residential aged care facility organisational culture to support the appropriate use of psychotropic medications in people living with dementia.
Where are they now?
Marina Sawan is a Dementia Research Fellow at the School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health at The University of Sydney.
