What works in delivering dementia education or training to hospital staff? A critical synthesis of the evidence

Background: The quality of care delivered to people with dementia in hospital settings is of international concern. People with dementia occupy up to one quarter of acute hospital beds, however, staff working in hospitals report lack of knowledge and skills in caring for this group. There is limited evidence about the most effective approaches to training hospital staff on dementia. Objective: The purpose of this literature review was to examine published evidence on the most effective approaches to dementia training and education for hospital staff. Design and review methods: The review was conducted using critical synthesis and included qualitative, quantitative and mixed/multi-methods studies. Kirkpatrick’s four level model for the evaluation of training interventions was adopted to structure the review. Data sources: The following databases were searched: MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, AMED, British Education Index, Education Abstracts, ERIC (EbscoHost), The Cochrane Library-Cochrane reviews, Economic evaluations, CENTRAL (Wiley), HMIC (Ovid), ASSIA, IBSS (Proquest), Conference Proceedings Citation Indexes (Web of Science), using a combination of keyword for the following themes: Dementia/Alzheimer’s, training/education, staff knowledge and patient outcomes. Results: A total of 20 papers were included in the review, the majority of which were low or medium quality, impacting on generalisability. The 16 different training programmes evaluated in the studies varied in terms of duration and mode of delivery, although most employed face-to-face didactic techniques. Studies predominantly reported on reactions to training and knowledge, only one study evaluated outcomes across all of the levels of the Kirkpatrick model. Key features of training that appeared to be more acceptable and effective were identified related to training content, delivery methods, practicalities, duration and support for implementation. Conclusions: The review methodology enabled inclusion of a broad range of studies and permitted common features of successful programmes to be identified. Such features may be used in the design of future dementia training programmes, to increase their potential for effectiveness. Further research on the features of effective dementia training for hospital staff is required.