Personalised care planning for older people with frailty: a review of factors influencing implementation

Background

Frailty increases vulnerability to major health changes because of seemingly small health problems. It affects around 10% of people aged >65 years. Older adults with frailty frequently have multiple long-term conditions, personal challenges, and social problems. Personalised care planning (PCP) based on ‘goal setting’ and ‘action planning’ is a promising way to address the needs of older adults living with frailty.

Aim

To identify and explore factors that influence the implementation of PCP-style interventions for older adults.

Design & setting

We conducted a scoping review and identified a small number of interventions that explicitly employed goal setting and action planning.

Method

We used a range of sources to identify relevant material. We included all interventions inclusive of patients aged ≥65 years and reported in English. We excluded end-of-life care interventions, group education, and/or those that did not involve one-to-one engagement. We explored all related articles that described, examined, or discussed implementation. We constructed a thematic framework in NVivo (version 11). Findings were narratively synthesised.

Results

We identified 18 potentially relevant PCP-style interventions and 13 of these met the inclusion criteria. Within these, were seven main categories of potentially modifiable influences relevant to older adults with frailty related to the following: primary care engagement; delivery staff characteristics; training; patient engagement; collaborative working; organisation and management; and systems.

Conclusion

Many modifiable factors can influence the implementation of PCP. We identified several influences that have informed the development and implementation of a novel intervention PeRsOnaliSed care Planning for oldER people with frailty (PROSPER).