Under the Hood: Best Practice Caregiving’s Research Evidence Component
In the early stages of BPC’s creation, more than 200 programs were under consideration for inclusion. Only 44 have made it in.
The criteria established by our development team — all experts in the fields of aging and caregiving — were strict. This was meant to ensure that the accepted programs had a strong evidence base illustrating beneficial outcomes.
Research Evidence - A Valuable Tool for Program Assessment
In building BPC, we wanted to provide users with one single, easy-to-use screen to access and view all research related to a given program. To see the Research Evidence component, click into any program of BPC, then scroll to the bottom of the program profile. You’ll see two drop-down areas: Program Impact and Outcomes and Study Characteristics.
The Program Impact and Outcomes section provides an overview of the studies and results (“beneficial,” “no effect” or “adverse”) for the following:
- Caregiver Well-Being
- Support for Caregiver
- Person with Dementia Well-Being
- Support for Person with Dementia
- Person with Dementia Service Utilization and Service Costs
At a glance, this area allows the user to see where benefits were found, across the studies.
The Study Characteristics section provides a deeper dive into the research itself, including:
- Overview of study details
- Study dates
- Eligibility criteria
- Source of data
- Funding sources
- Links to articles (when publicly available)
BPC users can dig as deeply as they want to get a full sense of the research and whatever aspects apply to their particular organization's priorities, parameters and goals.
Best Practice Caregiving eliminates the need for organizations to do all the legwork of identifying and assessing dementia caregiving programs on their own. Research is just one aspect of the database that saves them valuable time and resources.
Learn more about the methodology of program inclusion here.
Visit BPC today to find programs that have been proven to improve the lives of caregivers like the ones you serve.
