Key components in models of community-based interventions coordinating care in dementia: a mixed studies systematic review protocol

BACKGROUND: Current health and social care systems are providing suboptimal and fragmented care to the growing dementia population. Interventions aiming to coordinate care services for individuals with dementia and their families are already widely used; however, the structure and implementation of these interventions vary. This mixed studies review aims to investigate the key components of effective community-based interventions that focus on coordinating care in dementia. METHODS: We will search MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Embase and PsycINFO databases for studies of any design that look at community-based interventions that aim to coordinate dementia care through the allocation of a specified professional responsible for provision of care. Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC), Social Policy and Practice (SPP), ProQuest and International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) databases will be searched for grey literature. Outcomes of interest are health outcome measures that relate to the individual with dementia and/or informal caregiver, measures of resource use or process measures. Two independent reviewers will screen identified papers and extract data from eligible studies. Evidence synthesis will take place in three stages, and methods will be largely dependent on the data available. A sequential review design will be used where the qualitative evidence will be synthesised first, focusing on stakeholder’s subjective views of key components. This will drive forward the quantitative stage which will identify key components of effective interventions. The final stage of the review will merge the two strands of evidence through a narrative synthesis. DISCUSSION: The results from this review will be used to develop a model for a community-based intervention coordinating care in dementia. Furthermore, the findings will help guide future work on intervention development of health and social care services for dementia. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42015024618 ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13643-015-0143-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.