Standards and quality of care for older persons in long term care facilities: a scoping review

BACKGROUND: Caring for older persons has become a global necessity to ensure functional ability and healthy ageing. It is of paramount importance that standards of care are monitored, especially for older persons who live in long term care facilities (LTCF). We, therefore, scoped and summarised evidence relating to standards and the quality of care for older persons in LTCFs in gerontological literature globally. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review using Askey and O’Malley’s framework, including Levac et al. recommendations. PubMed, CINAHL, Health Sources, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar were searched with no date limitation up to May 2020 using keywords, Boolean terms, and medical subject headings. We also consulted the World Health Organization website and the reference list of included articles for evidence sources. This review also included peer-reviewed publications and grey literature in English that focused on standards and quality of care for older residents in LTCFs. Two reviewers independently screened the title, abstract, and full-text of evidence sources screening stages and performed the data extraction. Thematic content analysis was used, and a summary of the findings are reported narratively. RESULTS: Sixteen evidence sources published from 1989 to 2017 met this study’s eligibility criteria out of 73,845 citations obtained from the broader search. The majority of the studies were conducted in the USA 56% (9/16), and others were from Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Norway, Israel, Japan, and France. The included studies presented evidence on the effectiveness of prompted voiding intervention for urinary incontinence in LTCFs (37.5%), the efficacy of professional support to LTCF staff (18.8%), and the prevention-effectiveness of a pressure ulcer programme in LTCFs (6.3%). Others presented evidence on regulation and quality of care (12.5%); nursing documentation and quality of care (6.3%); medical, nursing, and psychosocial standards on the quality of care (6.3%); medication safety using the Beer criteria (6.3%); and the quality of morning care provision (6.3%). CONCLUSION: This study suggests most studies relating to standards and quality of care in LTCFs focus on effectiveness of interventions, few on people-centredness and safety, and are mainly conducted in European countries and the United States of America. Future studies on people-centerdness, safety, and geographical settings with limited or no evidence are recommended. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-02892-0.