A systematic review of the evidence on home care reablement services

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether publically funded 'reablement services' have any effect on patient health or use of services.

Design: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials and non-randomized studies in which reablement interventions were compared with no care or usual care in people referred to public-funded personal care services. Data sources included: Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, EPOC register of studies, trials registers, Medline, EMBASE, and CINHAL. Searches were from 2000 up to end February 2015.

Setting: Not applicable.

Participants: Investigators' definition of the target population for reablement interventions.

Main outcome measures: Use of publically funded personal care services and dependence in personal activities of daily living.

Results: We found no studies fulfilling our inclusion criteria that assessed the effectiveness of reablement interventions. We did note the lack of an agreed understanding of the nature of reablement.

Conclusions: Reablement is an ill-defined intervention targeted towards an ill-defined and potentially highly heterogeneous population/patient group. There is no evidence to suggest it is effective at either of its goals; increasing personal independence or reducing use of personal care services.

Keywords: Reablement; disability; independence; multimorbidity; non-randomized controlled trial; older people; personal care services; public policy; randomized controlled trial; systematic review.