Effect of a culturally sensitive DEmentia Competence Education for Nursing home Taskforce (DECENT) programme in China: A quasi-experimental study

Background: Existing educational programmes for building capacity in dementia care are developed in the Western culture; their applicability and cultural relevancy to other cultures is questionable. There is a dearth of culturally specific dementia-care educational programme for Chinese communities. Objectives: To evaluate a culturally specific DEmentia Competence Education for Nursing home Taskforce (DECENT) programme in mainland China. Design: A multi-site quasi-experimental study. Methods: Nursing homes were pair-matched and allocated into intervention (n = 5) and control group (n = 5). The DECENT programme was delivered face-to-face using multiple pedagogies for 60-90 min per session by a trained educator once per week over 8 weeks. The primary outcome was the sense of competence in dementia care. The secondary outcomes were dementia knowledge, attitudes towards people with dementia, personcentred care in nursing homes and the severity of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia of residents with dementia and staff-perceived disturbance. They were measured at baseline (T0), immediately postintervention (T1) and 3 months after the intervention (T2). Results: The intervention group has significantly greater improvement than control group in sense of competence both at T1 (B = 5.24, p < .001) and T2 (B = 4.43, p = .013). Regarding dementia knowledge and person-centred care, intervention group only showed greater improvement than control group at T1 (B = 3.18, p = .001; B = 5.75, p = .018, respectively), but not at T2 (p = .089 and .104, respectively). Group differences in attitudes and severity of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and staff-perceived disturbance were not significant at both time points. Conclusions: The DECENT programme is applicable and beneficial in improving staff's sense of competence in dementia care in Chinese communities, but reinforcement strategies are needed to sustain the effect for maintaining the learnt knowledge and changed person-centred care practice.