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HELSEVEL-H-Gode og effektive helse-, omsorgs- og velferdstjenester

Evidence brief on care services Research in Norway

Alternative title: Kunnskapsnotat om omsorgstjenesteforskningen i Norge

Awarded: NOK 0.80 mill.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has prepared an evidence brief on care services research in Norway in the period January 2012 - February 2019. We have collected research on care services founded on the Act on municipal health and care services, such as homebased health and care services, personal assistance, health and care services in nursing homes and in other care homes. We have included informal care services provided by relatives and volunteers. We have not included care services provided in specialist health care, child and family care or in labour and welfare services, but we do have studies on the interaction between these services and municipal health and care services. We have delimited care services research from care research based on the definition of services research provided by the program plan in HELSEVEL - Programme on Health, Care and Welfare Services Research. We have carried out a scoping review based on a comprehensive systematic literature search. We prepared a project plan and a framework that we discussed with a reference group with representatives of the research community, professionals and users. We have collected information from the studies based on titles and summaries, and we have not reviewed the articles in full text. The literature searches yielded 4839 hits. We included 796 titles. The number of published articles increased for each year, from 62 in 2012 to 151 in 2018. The articles covered all topics in care services research defined in the HELSEVEL program plan (number of articles included in brackets): vertical and horizontal interaction (206); service innovation and implementation (184); ethical, legal and societal aspects (165); governance, management and organisation (123); technology and digitalisation (77); economics and resource allocation (56). Several of the articles covered more than one topic. The largest category was "other" (262), including studies investigating e.g. the content or quality of the services. Most titles were articles published in international journals (532), followed by Norwegian (99) and Nordic (97) journals. There were also some master's theses (26), reports (20) and some other types of publications. The studies used different study designs. Most studies were designed to identify and describe phenomena in the care services. Nearly half were qualitative studies, while one in five was a cross-sectional study. A relatively small proportion of the studies examined the effect of interventions. The respondents in the studies included both patients, relatives and different types of health and care professionals. The target group for the study was often older, but some studies also included younger people. Most studies did not deal with people with specific diagnoses, but 153 of the studies were about people with dementia. Most studies examined nursing home care services (355) and home care services (290). All the main Norwegian research communities have contributed to the care services research, both university colleges, universities and independent research institutes. In 72 of the publications, one or more of the authors had links to a Norwegian municipality, often through involvement in centers for development of institutional and home care services. We do not have a sufficient basis to compare Norwegian care services research with Nordic and international care services research, neither in terms of the topics, the scope nor the quality of the research. Several of the studies were results of international collaborative projects, and 21% of the publications had co-authors associated with a non-Norwegian institution. The topics studied in Norwegian care services research are also relevant in international care services research. Although we conducted a systematic and comprehensive literature search, we may have missed relevant articles. Because we did not evaluate the articles in full text, we had limited opportunity to assess the quality of the studies and our confidence in the results. The evidence brief presents selected studies within the various main topics in services research, to illustrate that many of the included publications have results that are relevant to the care services.

Ved at notatet gir en oversikt over omsorgstjenesteforskningen i Norge de siste 7 årene, og identifiserer viktige resultater, utfordringer og kunnskapsbehov, kan det bidra til å informere prioriteringer og beslutninger både innen politikk, forskning og praksis. Vi håper at notatet kan inspirere til at omsorgstjenesteforskningen i Norge blir enda mer relevant og av høyere kvalitet. Selv om omfanget av omsorgstjenesteforskningen er økende, er omfanget begrenset sammenliknet med helsetjenesteforskningen generelt. Nær halvparten av studiene har kvalitativt design. Notatet viser at det er behov for en større andel studier som utvikler og evaluerer ulike tiltak som kan gi bedre og mer effektive omsorgstjenester.

Vi vil avgrense omsorgstjenesteforskning fra omsorgsforskning ved å ta utgangspunkt i definisjonen av tjenesteforskning i programplanen for HELSEVEL. Videre avgrenser vi til forskning på de omsorgstjenester som er hjemlet i Lov om kommunale helse- og omsorgstjenester. Vi vil ta utgangspunkt i sentrale dokumenter referert til i HELSEVELs programplan og i forsknings- og innovasjonsstrategien «HelseOmsorg21». I oppstartsfasen lager vi, i tråd med vår metodehåndbok «Slik oppsummerer vi forskning», et utkast til en prosjektplan. Framgangsmåtene omfatter bruk av tematisk rammeverk, systematiske søk, seleksjonskriterier og kvalitetsvurderinger. For å sikre relevans og kvalitet vil vi involvere brukere og forankre metodevalgene i et oppstartsmøte i januar 2019. Ressursgruppen skal bestå av personer med kompetanse på omsorgstjenesteforskning, og representanter for ansatte og brukere (pasienter og pårørende) i de kommunale omsorgstjenestene. For å svare på spørsmålene om hva det forskes på og hvor forskningen foregår, vil vi søke i elektroniske databaser, i referanselister, på nettsidene til norske forskningsinstitusjoner som har omsorgstjenester som forskningsfelt, i den norske forskningsdatabasen Cristin, på nettsidene til Forskningsrådets programmer Helse- og omsorgstjenester og HELSEVEL, samt ved å kontakte eksperter. For at forskningskartleggingen skal være lett tilgjengelig for den brede målgruppen, vil den ha to sluttprodukter: et kunnskapsnotat og et interaktivt forskningskart. Kunnskapsnotatet vil kartlegge publikasjoner og pågående studier, kunnskapshull, resultater og internasjonale sammenlikninger i tekst og tabeller. Det interaktive forskningskartet vil være en nettbasert matrise som illustrerer forekomster av ulike kategorier av omsorgstjenesteforskning og hvor forskningen foregår.

Funding scheme:

HELSEVEL-H-Gode og effektive helse-, omsorgs- og velferdstjenester