The development and use of the Assessment of Dementia Awareness and Person-centred Care Training (ADAPT) tool in long-term care

Policy and practice guidelines recommend person-centred care (PCC) to support people to live well with dementia in long-term care (LTC). Therefore, staff working in LTC settings need to be trained in dementia awareness and PCC. However, the access to, content of and reach of training across LTC settings can be varied. Data on current and ongoing access to PCC training can form and important component of data gathered on usual care (UC) in research studies, in particular clinical trials within LTC. However, no suitable assessment tools are available to measure dementia awareness and PCC training availability, content and reach. This paper describes the development of a training audit tool to meet this need for a UC measure of dementia awareness and PCC training. The ‘Assessment of Dementia Awareness and Person-centred care Training’ (ADAPT) tool was based on a review of published PCC literature and consultation with dementia and aged care experts. The ADAPT tool was piloted in 13 LTC facilities the UK and Australia, before being used to assess the content of dementia and PCC awareness training in 50 UK settings in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) as part of a UC recording. Following pilot testing, modifications to the ADAPT tool’s wording were made to enhance item clarity. When implemented in the RCT, pre-baseline training assessment data showed that the ADAPT tool was able to differentiate between LTC and identify settings where further dementia awareness training was required. ADAPT was then used as a method of recording data on dementia awareness and PCC training as part of UC data collection. The ADAPT tool is suitable for use by researchers to establish the availability, content and reach of dementia and PCC awareness training to staff within research studies.