Preventive Home Visits Among Frail Community-Dwelling Older Adults. The Added Value of Follow-Up Telephone Calls

ABSTRACT

People in need of care and support do not always find appropriate services. This paper aims to explore the content and added value of monthly follow-up telephone calls after preventive home visits. We used both monitoring data and qualitative semi-structured interviews (with older adults, formal and informal caregivers). Results indicate that a majority of older adults (N = 95) received a regular follow-up of four telephone calls. Social connection and involvement were mentioned by all three groups as positive aspects of the program. Although time-consuming, this paper draws attention to the added value of follow-up telephone calls after preventive home visits.

KEYWORDS:

• Frail older adults
• preventive home visits
• follow-up telephone calls
• aging in place

Acknowledgments

The research of the D-SCOPE consortium, commissioned by the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology, is embedded in the Strategic Basic Research (IWT-140027-SBO). The authors thank the participants for their commitment and enthusiasm.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology Flanders [grant number IWT-140027-SBO].