Operationalising the Recovery College model with people living with dementia: a realist review.

OBJECTIVES: Post-diagnostic support is a significant factor in facilitating personal recovery following a diagnosis of dementia, but access is often inconsistent and insufficient. Recovery Colleges offer peer-led, co-produced courses that can support people to have meaningful lives and have been adapted for use in the context of dementia. A realist review was conducted to understand the application and sustainability of Recovery College dementia courses. METHOD: An iterative, five-step process combined literature published to 2023 with knowledge from stakeholders with lived and professional experience of dementia involved with Recovery College dementia courses (PROSPERO registration CRD42021293687). RESULTS: Thirty-five documents and discussions with 19 stakeholders were used to build the initial programme theory comprising of 24 context-mechanism-outcome configurations. Reoccurring factors included: attending to aspects of co-production and course delivery to ensure they promoted inclusion and were not compromised by organisational pressures; how stigma impacted access to course opportunities; and embedding personal recovery principles throughout course development to be relevant for people living with dementia and those who support them. CONCLUSION: People struggling to reconcile their future alongside dementia need practical and emotional support to access and benefit from Recovery College dementia courses, ways to achieve this will be explored through a realist evaluation.

Cost and economic evidence for asset-based approaches to health improvement and their evaluation methods: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Asset-based approaches (ABAs) tackle health inequalities by empowering people in more disadvantaged communities, or targeted populations, to better utilise pre-existing local community-based resources. Using existing resources supports individuals to better manage their own health and its determinants, potentially at low cost. Targeting individuals disengaged with traditional service delivery methods offers further potential for meaningful cost-savings, since these people often require costly care. Thus, improving prevention, and management, of ill-health in these groups may have considerable cost implications. AIM: To systematically review the extent of current cost and economic evidence on ABAs, and methods used to develop it. METHODS: Search strategy terms encompassed: i) costing; ii) intervention detail; and iii) locality. Databases searched: Medline, CENTRAL and Wed of Science. Researchers screened 9,116 articles. Risk of bias was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tool. Narrative synthesis summarised findings. RESULTS: Twelve papers met inclusion criteria, representing eleven different ABAs. Within studies, methods varied widely, not only in design and comparators, but also in terms of included costs and outcome measures. Studies suggested economic efficiency, but lack of suitable comparators made more definitive conclusions difficult. CONCLUSION: Economic evidence around ABAs is limited. ABAs may be a promising way to engage underserved or minority groups, that may have lower net costs compared to alternative health and wellbeing improvement approaches. ABAs, an example of embedded services, suffer in the context of economic evaluation, which typically consider services as mutually exclusive alternatives. Economics of the surrounding services, mechanisms of information sharing, and collaboration underpin the success of assets and ABAs. The economic evidence, and evaluations in general, would benefit from increased context and detail to help ensure more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the economics of ABAs. Further evidence is needed to reach conclusions about cost-effectiveness of ABAs.

Protocol for a realist evaluation of Recovery College dementia courses: understanding coproduction through ethnography.

INTRODUCTION: Support following a dementia diagnosis in the UK is variable. Attending a Recovery College course with and for people with dementia, their supporters and healthcare professionals (staff), may enable people to explore and enact ways to live well with dementia. Recovery Colleges are established within mental health services worldwide, offering peer-supported short courses coproduced in partnership between staff and people with lived experience of mental illness. The concept of recovery is challenging in dementia narratives, with little evidence of how the Recovery College model could work as a method of postdiagnostic dementia support. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Using a realist evaluation approach, this research will examine and define what works, for whom, in what circumstances and why, in Recovery College dementia courses. The ethnographic study will recruit five case studies from National Health Service Mental Health Trusts across England. Sampling will seek diversity in new or long-standing courses, delivery methods and demographics of population served. Participant observations will examine course coproduction. Interviews will be undertaken with people with dementia, family and friend supporters and staff involved in coproducing and commissioning the courses, as well as people attending. Documentary materials will be reviewed. Analysis will use a realist logic of analysis to develop a programme theory containing causal explanations for outcomes, in the form of context-mechanism-outcome-configurations, at play in each case. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study received approval from Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee (22/WM/0215). Ethical concerns include not privileging any voice, consent for embedded observational fieldwork with people who may experience fluctuating mental capacity and balancing researcher 'embedded participant' roles in publicly accessible learning events. Drawing on the realist programme theory, two stakeholder groups, one people living with dementia and one staff will work with researchers to coproduce resources to support coproducing Recovery College dementia courses aligned with postdiagnostic services.