Health promotion in residential care facilities is particularly relevant due to the special challenges faced by employees and the opportunities for strengthening health determinants for residents and their relatives this setting affords. The project ‘Health Has No Age: Transfer Carinthia’, conducted by a multi-professional team from the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (CUAS), Austria, focused on the advancement of health promotion in this setting.

Based on a comprehensive participatory analysis of the needs of residents, their relatives, full-time and voluntary staff, researchers from the CUAS’ degree programmes of Occupational Therapy, Healthcare and Nursing, and Physiotherapy developed and implemented three health promoting measures in three residential care facilities. These measures focused on (1) self-determined living for residents and their relatives, (2) peer counselling for employees, and (3) relaxation and activation for staff and, by extension, everyone in the setting.

All project activities were evaluated with a mixed-methods approach. Across all target groups and measures, 232 people filled in a quantitative evaluation questionnaire. In addition, 18 people consented to take part in qualitative interviews. Early results show that a participatory approach to designing activities as well as relationship building are factors which reinforce the sustainable implementation of health promotion activities in everyday (professional) life. Potential implications for future research and practice, bolstered by existing literature, are to focus more on the reachability of residents’ relatives and facilities’ voluntary staff as well as on low-threshold institutional framework conditions which enable the sustainable implementation of health promoting measures.

Authors:
Manuela Perchtaler, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria
Gabriele Hagendorfer-Jauk, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria
Johanna Breuer, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria
Christine Pichler, Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria

About the Presenter(s)
Manuela Perchtaler is currently a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Applied Research on Ageing (IARA), Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria.

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