Comprehensive day-to-day care and support needs of older Australians requiring government-funded home-based aged care: a scoping review.

Abstract

Objective This study aimed to locate and describe research studies in which the comprehensive day-to-day care and support needs of older Australians requiring home-based aged care have been measured and reported in detail. Methods A scoping review was conducted according to Joanna Briggs Institute guidance. A systematic search of peer-reviewed and grey literature was undertaken. Results Screening identified 2/866 eligible records. Researchers studying the 'service needs' of older people (n =50) residing in a rural/remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community found a high need for home care (86%), transport (59%), and allied health (46%) services. In the second study, older people (n =55) from a regional community had 38/79 'underlying care needs' including for washing/bathing, managing urinary incontinence, and arranging/keeping appointments. The authors of each study took a different perspective of 'needs' - that is, their participants' need for specific service types (e.g. transport) versus their fundamental underlying needs (e.g. arranging/keeping appointments) which give rise to service needs. Conclusions The findings suggest Australian aged care providers and policy-makers lack a strong evidence base about the comprehensive underlying day-to-day care and support needs experienced by older Australians, to optimally inform both the design of home-based aged care programs and services, and workforce skill and skill mix requirements for the sector. Future studies about the population's underlying day-to-day care and support needs, with larger and more representative study populations (e.g. making use of routinely collected aged care datasets), would be beneficial. Such studies would provide important information to support the development of a government-funded home-based aged care system optimised to effectively and efficiently meet the needs of the population it is seeking to support.